


Insufferable Beloved

by EldritchTribble



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: (at least trying very hard to be), (or is it), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sexual Tension, dancing to klingon opera, doing my part to feed the quodo dumpster fire, fake engagement, in which quark has a raging voice kink, in which the great link has had enough of odo's baggage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 18:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9620747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchTribble/pseuds/EldritchTribble
Summary: “Good news is a depreciating asset; the best news should therefore be conveyed only once.” – Rule of Acquisition no. 287 (apocryphal)Quark orchestrates a grand gesture in an attempt to prove Odo right about him. He ends up proving himself right about Odo instead. Post-canon; heavy on the flashbacks, bickering and Ferengi family shenanigans.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to dedicate this work to the quodo community. Consider it my Valentine's gift to y'all. <3
> 
> Warnings: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. Don't even try reading this unless you've finished DS9; not much will make sense otherwise.
> 
> Content warnings: suicide ideation (ch. 1, 5 & 7); body horror (mild instances throughout but ch. 4 is pretty bad); suicide attempt (ch. 2 & 3); ch. 6 is a doozy and will get its own set of warnings

Quark did not want to think about how much glassware he would have to replicate after this.

Surveying the scene as neutrally as he could, he began tallying the damage. Countertop cracked, its laminate surface shattered to pry precious lacquerwork out from within. Latinum slips everywhere, scattered across the floor like a plague of glittering insects. Three bottles of Aldebaran whiskey stolen, one smashed open and still bleeding out behind the counter.

There was simply no way he could open the bar again for several more weeks.

In retrospect, he wondered whether he had sold the information at too trifling a cost. Naturally, no-one had thought to anticipate this particular outcome. He had been acting as any good Ferengi would have: in enlightened self-interest, nothing more.  Anyway, as long as Odo had remained on the station, nothing too terrible could have happened to him, right?

He picked up a piece of cloisonné and worried it between his fingers. The rest he could send out for - he still had his connections, not to mention a modest savings account – but this decanter had been a masterpiece, not something that falls ready-made out of just anyone’s workshop.

 _Such wanton destruction of value over the smallest of misunderstandings…it never could have come to this before,_ he mused, thinking himself alone with his woe.

Quark would soon be disabused of this misconception, however, as a slow, deliberate footfall derailed his train of thought. Panicking, he ducked behind the counter, trying to ignore the glass splinters that proved all too willing to burrow into his trousers.

He waited. An odd rustling, then a tinkling of broken china, joined the footsteps as they made their circuit of the bar – looking for him, no doubt. To Quark’s fraught sensibilities, the whiskey trickling out of the broken bottle evoked the roar of Speculation Falls.

The intruder drew near and leaned something tall and wooden against the counter. Quark muttered an inaudible prayer to the Blessed Exchequer to make his end swift and merciful.

Before he knew it, Quark had been discovered. Grey, gnarled hands, each the size of a bottle of bloodwine, gripped the counter as beady eyes glinted at him from above.

“ _Morn?_ It was you all along?” Quark exclaimed in umbrage. Morn offered him a hand up, which he accepted gratefully, brushing his trousers with the other. “You startled me! That’s an automatic five percent pay cut, you realize. No, I don’t want to hear about it! A contract is a contract is a contract.” As per usual, Quark neglected to include the rest of the seventeenth Rule of Acquisition. Morn rolled his eyes.

Satisfied that his employee of ten months would not put up more of an argument, Quark’s attention turned to the wooden object. “Hm. So you’ve been helping to sweep up? And it’s after hours? Fine, be that way. I’ll make it three percent, and that’s _if_ you tidy the top floor as well. Don’t say I never gave you anything.” The Lurian crossed his arms in a manner that reminded Quark uncannily of Odo. So much so, in fact, that the despair that had become Quark’s faithful companion took momentary hold of him, suffocating and twisting like a predatory vine.

He did not want to think about Odo anymore. He had made a point of not even mentioning Odo’s name for over a month now. Yet here was Morn, lumbering up to the top level, broom in hand, shaking his head, for all intents and purposes feeling _sorry_ for him. Sorry for his employer. This was wrong on so many levels that it made Quark’s head hurt.

Defeated, he made his way to the storage closet for one of his self-pity sessions. As he closed the door behind him and cracked open a dusty crate, he found himself ruminating on the exact moment when cordial relations between him and Odo had dissolved irrevocably.

No amount of tending bar on Terok Nor could have prepared him for seeing a face – any face – fall quite as quickly as he had on that horrible afternoon. The remark in question had been an insensitive one, he now realized; he had belabored a point that did not require belaboring, resulting in his coming off as tone-deaf instead of shrewd.

It had seemed innocent enough at the time. Just a harmless little business proposal; something to help drive revenue up a couple percent per week. The way Quark saw it, Odo would have been perfectly within his rights to assume the moral high ground and resume prying into Quark’s affairs. Indeed, Odo’s investigative prowess had already gained him a commission on Terok Nor, so for the life of him Quark could not understand how he had incapacitated the constable using nothing but ill grace. Naturally, he had filed this incredible new power away as collateral for legal emergencies, and it would be dishonest of him not to admit that it had seen its share of use over the years.

Now that Odo had ensconced himself within the Great Link for the foreseeable future, however, Quark reflected that he would gladly exchange two months’ worth of profits – maybe even three – for an opportunity to eat his words. All of them. _They might be halfway palatable with a side of tube grubs,_ he mused, taking a swig of sparkling wine directly from the bottle. _Bajoran Wine Weekly_ had called this particular vintage ‘pleasant, yet uninspiring’; he had stocked it for Odo back when he was a solid, and none of Quark’s following customers had seen much point in ordering something so pedestrian. Not for the first time, it occurred to Quark that Odo’s bland, unobjectionable tastes might have been deliberate: a contrived counterbalance to everything odd about him.

That Cardassian neck trick he did, for example. Who could have predicted that beating that dead targ would have sealed Quark’s fate as the one person Odo treated with more circumspection than Dr. Mora? Quark took another pull of boring wine and, despite himself, remembered.

***

“Don’t get me wrong, Odo, but I’ve been thinking –“

“Oh, have you now? I’ll be sure to alert the proper media outlets,” Odo had quipped, leaning into Quark’s side of the counter and grinning wryly.

“…Very funny. If I may continue?”

The rumble of assent from Odo had seemed as good an invitation as any. It had also produced a distracting subharmonic that had in no way led to Quark knocking over his eelwasser.

“I’ve been thinking that the various…shapeshifting feats of which you are undoubtedly capable…” _don’t think about them too hard, Quark – “_ and which may or may not include that Cardassian neck trick of yours, could become quite the attraction around here,” he had managed, as he scrambled for a rag and began buffing the bar back to its habitual sheen.

At that pivotal moment, the playfulness that had hitherto characterized their interactions had vanished. When Odo had collected himself enough to reply, his tone had been icy and unyielding. “As I recall, Quark, I already refused to perform the neck trick for you once. What makes you think I would offer it up for the amusement of what passes for clientele in this place?”

In his eagerness to explain the scheme, Quark had chosen to ignore Odo’s less-than-subtle dig at his establishment. “You’d ingratiate yourself with them! Don’t you see? Do you think I haven’t noticed how hard you’ve always tried to fit in? You’d be an instant sensation! You’d have friends in high places! Latinum! Fe-males! You’d be invited to every party on the station!”

Far from reflecting Quark’s enthusiasm, Odo’s aspect had taken on a haunted look. He had then confessed to hating parties.

“Sometimes, Odo, I think you hate being alive,” Quark had surmised, leaning into an elbow-propped hand and gazing at Odo as candidly as he knew how. “Small wonder, really, when you’re so ill-equipped to appreciate what’s right in front of you, ready to be enjoyed.” Sensing discretion to be the better part of valor here, he had not helped the innuendo along any more than necessary. Of course, Odo had ignored it.

“What utter nonsense,” he had scoffed, though his tone had led Quark to wonder whether he had in fact gotten through on some long-hidden level.

“I’m not giving up on you yet, Odo,” Quark had assured him. “Maybe you just need a proper incentive. Tell you what. If you’d ever condescend to entertain my patrons, even on a strictly freelance basis, I figure we could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. I might even let you in on some…” – here he had scooted forward conspiratorially, close enough to check his reflection in Odo’s unwavering stare  – “… _inside_ information…to which I may or may not be privy, you understand. Case by case, of course.” At that, he had let out a demure little cough.

“So what do you say? Shall we do business?” One lascivious waggle of his brow later, and Quark had thought for all the quadrant that he had the deal in the bag. He had pictured it so vividly: **_It’s a bird! It’s a shuttlecraft! No, it’s Odo the Marvelous Mysterious Goo Man, appearing by special commission at Quark’s! This week, Odo demonstrates that he doesn’t need solid vocal cords to make Ferengi lobes tingle. Kanar and hors d’œuvres to follow._** This glorious vision had also served to remind him that he needed a bigger marquee.

What he had _not_ needed – much less expected – was to have a disconsolate shapeshifter on his hands. An annoyed one, perhaps. Up in arms, likely as not. In high enough dudgeon to grab Quark by the ears and haul him off to a holding cell for disturbing Odo’s personal peace, if not the station’s at large? _That’d be more like it,_ Quark had thought mistily. Those fathomless orbs that he had been so busy admiring (purely for the skill necessary to produce them, of course) abruptly congealed in resignation, clouding and blotting Quark’s reflections. Bemused, Quark had barely registered the fact that a quietly churning Odo had pushed back his barstool with enough force to upend a Klingon. The constable hadn’t even bothered to harass a gaggle of rambunctious off-duty guards on his way out.

***

Quark may once have been content to retreat into conjecture, religious appeals, and tired after-hours speculation with Morn, but he could not deny that it had been too little, too late for quite some time. Furthermore, he was still no closer to deducing how one remark could have allowed things to go so wrong for so many years.

For things _had_ gone wrong, utterly wrong, between him and Odo. _Or at least,_ Quark conceded, chiding himself for excessive dramatic rhetoric, _they had had the potential of going so much more **right**. _ To illustrate said point, a certain subsection of his mind helpfully supplied a number of scenarios in which he and Odo had blissfully reconciled, as well as several others of comparable content in which he had never brought up shapeshifting for profit in the first place.

It was too much. So it had been for years already, but something about taking stock of your ransacked establishment, drinking unprofitable alcoholic beverages in your storage closet, and reminiscing more than was necessary tended to crystallize things.

 _So be it._ Grabbing a padd from atop a derelict dabo table, he wrote a quick missive to Morn. if he was going to be branded a reprehensible criminal like the kind that had just threatened his livelihood, then he might as well live up to that reputation. His only regret was that Odo would not witness it.

Making off with a runabout would be the first order of business.


	2. Chapter 2

_You cannot mean to repeat this_ , the mnemonic filament formerly known as Odo thought-inscribed into the Link.

_It is only after great deliberation that we who are aleph-legion reach this decision. It wounds us to cast Odo-that-was out of the Link once again. In time, or perhaps sooner, the aleph-nought Odo-that-was should recognize our motive as congruent to its own._

_Why do this? Why remind Odo-that-was of its separateness so cruelly? It has suffered much._

_The aleph-nought with the query will understand that we do not leave Odo-that-was with a cruel fate. Further, that one will recall certain…aspirations? [does this thought-inscription take the proper form?] that it had once endeavored to keep from the Whole. It is free to reclaim these – aspirations – now, with neither wisdom nor interference from aleph-legion-that-is-the-Link._

At this, a whirl of sound and energy merged with Odo-that-was, who recognized it as a manifold thought-inscription: one that could be embedded into a multitude of dimensions and carry more than its weight in pondering. Most of this manifold seemed filled with recollections of a solid in garish attire endeavoring to be as irritating as possible.

The observer could not help resenting the timing of this exercise, as the Ferengi in question was busy poking a stubby finger in its former self’s eye.

“There. You see? Nothing like a practical demonstration of how much I need your interference. Or you, for that matter.”

“You? Not needing me? Hmph.” Odo allowed his legs to liquefy just enough so that he could look Quark in the eyes without stooping. He gripped the offending bartender by the shoulder and held his gaze defiantly, daring him to repeat his last stunt. “For your information, I happen to know _exactly_ what you’d do without me - you’d lock yourself in your storage closet and take credit for keeping the bar running while Rom did all the work! Tell me, Quark, have you ever considered what would happen if you ran into _real_ trouble during the course of one of your sordid plots?” Odo leaned back ever so slightly then, folding his arms and giving Quark an appraising once-over. It appeared to make Quark very uncomfortable. “No. I’m not _about_ to leave you to your devices and allow those schemes of yours to come crashing down on you like you so richly deserve.”

“Uh. Thanks, I guess?”

“Don’t mention it.” He morphed himself a fresh pair of calves and turned onto the promenade. Quark hurried after him.

“Odo, uh…you don’t think you need me a little too? For job security if nothing else?”

_“Quark –“_

Just as Odo spun around to face his tormentor, he unexpectedly found himself on the slopes of the mountain he and Quark had scaled on one memorable occasion. Odo-that-was realized that the rift resulted from a convergent inscription, wherein two surfaces of the manifold overlapped via common thematic material.

“How much further?” mewled a voice from behind his aching shoulders. Odo hefted the ponderous transmitter a bit higher and pressed on.

“I don’t know, Quark, you’re the one who’s been counting,” he retorted. “Why are you so interested when we’re days from our goal and nothing will change that except keeping this pace?”

“I want to know exactly how much more of your grumpiness I’ll have to withstand before declaring you MIA, presumed eaten.”

“Hmph. You’re probably overjoyed that you wouldn’t have to eat changeling-stuff.”

Quark looked affronted. “Hey, don’t look at _me_ , I never said that. Who knows? Changeling goo might be the most delicious substance in the galaxy. Have you ever tried it?”

The ex-changeling attempted a series of mental calculations, ones that led nowhere whatsoever. “I don’t believe even _you_ know what you’re insinuating, Quark. I certainly haven’t a clue and I’m not about to try finding out.”

“I’ll take that as a no, then.”

They pressed on, Odo shuddering at the rush of thin, glacial air invading his lungs every time he breathed. How did solids tolerate this obscene discomfort?

“…The one time, _the one time…” …the one time changing shape was not even an option; the one time he would not have cared an iota who saw him or how well he shifted; he had a_ job _to do, damn it, and they were both suffering for his inability -_

“The one time what?” Quark asked flatly, halting in his tracks.

“Never you mind,” replied a supercilious Odo.

The bartender stiffened at this. “No, Odo, I’d like to know. You wanna know why? Because we’re CLIMBING a MOUNTAIN on INSUFFICIENT RATIONS and I’ve got nothing else to distract myself with. Yet do you consider my mental well-being in all of this? No. With your ego, you probably think I’d be content just hanging back here admiring how you look in those awful trousers.”

“Perish the thought,” replied Odo petulantly. Nothing of the sort had occurred to him, but now that Quark had planted the idea he could not deny that it had its merits.

“So, what _was_ that strange interlude about?” insisted Quark as they resumed their odyssey.

“I told you, it’s none of your concern.”

“Tell me. Tell me. **_Tell me!!!_** _”_

“QUARK –“

Another rift. He now stood in a corridor of the habitat ring, facing a door that barely held back a wall of sound emanating from within. Ah, yes – he was following up on the second noise complaint he’d received that week; Lieutenant Commander Dax, it seemed, had taken pity on Worf’s _kal’hyah_ participants and thrown them a party of their own. Odo entered with little ceremony, keeping to the outskirts of the festivities. Doctor Bashir was belting out a lively karaoke number in what Odo’s universal translator recognized as Hindi. In an effort to sing along with Bashir, Chief O’Brien was reading lyrics off an upside-down padd in between bourbon shots. Captain Sisko had brought his famous homemade jambalaya and was mingling good-naturedly, but it was obvious from the haste in his demeanor that he did not plan on staying long. Alexander had found Morn near the back and was miming opposing forces (ships, asteroids, planets, Odo could not tell which) colliding and exploding while Morn applauded politely, waiting for an opportunity to steer the conversation his way. Odo could just make out Quark weaving through the mass of invitees, offering suspect-looking canapés to all and sundry.

“Odo! What a pleasant surprise,” he managed to shout unctuously. “Care for a refreshment?”

“As you are very much aware by now, I don’t eat. I want to talk to you.”

“Could you speak up? It’s a little hard to hear you over the melodious strains of Chief O’Brien and Doctor Bashir.” Odo noticed that Quark was wearing a very large and ostentatious pair of earplugs; somehow this bothered him. He gestured irritably at the door and mimed pulling earplugs out. Quark looked scandalized for a beat, then grudgingly got the message and followed him outside, tossing the tray of mystery appetizers over his shoulder and scattering them on the floor.

“You are acquainted with the individual who set up those amplifiers, correct?” Odo inquired matter-of-factly, after Quark had made a spectacle of removing his outsize earplugs.

_“_ Friend of a friend, I guess you’d call her,” Quark hazarded.

“So you couldn’t _possibly_ have known that the amplifiers in question are illegal in nine star systems?”

“Because they undermine the structural integrity of dilithium, sure, that’s their main selling point, but come on, how often does Dax get married?” They exchanged nonplussed glances. “…Not the best choice of words,” Quark admitted, skirting Odo’s steely gaze. Odo huffed in agreement, then proceeded to lean into Quark’s space, looming over the miscreant with both hands planted to the wall on either side of him. He knew from experience that this did much to unsettle Quark.

“Maybe you’d like to disclose who this friend of a friend is, where she is, and how she obtained the contraband,” Odo muttered, low and menacing. For an instant, behind fluttering eyelids, Quark’s irises hit the ceiling.

“Maybe you’d like to go back in there and dance with me,” he breathed. Odo snapped back, genuinely surprised. “…as long as we’re dealing in pipe dreams,” Quark added bitterly under his breath.

The security chief did not quite know how to respond to this offer. “I…don’t dance,” he managed lamely. In fact, Lwaxana Troi had persuaded him to try it once before, though he remained singularly unimpressed with the entire exercise.

“You don’t eat, you don’t drink, you don’t make love, you don’t dance…sheesh, Odo. Come on,” Quark coaxed, linking his arm through the constable’s. “One lousy dance and I promise I’ll tell you everything. Who knows? You might enjoy yourself - ” he added, thrusting his earplugs back in while Odo averted his eyes, “ – provided you even know how to.”

“Hmph. All right, Quark, I’ll humor you - but you’ve been warned,” grumbled Odo.

Upon re-entry, he observed that many of the guests looked much like he felt: Worf had replaced Bashir’s Bollywood soundtrack with Klingon opera and was heroically attempting to hit the high notes in a pivotal aria. Jadzia, looking equal parts mortified and amused, was sipping a Bloody Mary with bloodwine and wincing whenever Worf took too much artistic license. It reminded Odo more of a boxing match than a recital.

“Not much in the way of rhythm, but it’ll do.” Quark held his left hand out to his side, wrapped his right arm tightly around Odo’s midsection, and started shuffling his feet. Odo shot a disapproving scowl at Worf, who was clearly riding the cadenza to another plane of existence, and sidled closer to Quark in order to hear him better.

“What?”

“Follow my lead. I’ve got you,” reassured Quark, soothing Odo’s back and gesturing that he should take Quark’s outstretched hand.

“What?!” repeated Odo irritably.

Quark’s mien took on a sudden crafty tinge. “Has anyone ever told you that your voice could cure a rainy day, Constable?” he purred.

“I can’t hear you, Quark,” Odo replied in a singsong manner. In fact, he could _just_ make out what he was saying - though he was not going to give Quark the satisfaction of knowing it. Besides, who knew what else Quark might spill while unaware that the station’s chief of security could hear him?

Quark grinned triumphantly. “I know. You think I’d say that kind of swamp sludge if you could?”

“Hmph.”

They danced in companionable silence, Odo resting his chin experimentally on top of Quark’s head. It felt rather nice. Worf continued exploring new concepts in pitch while his mortified audience gradually turned its attention to something less offensive.

“It’s true though,” Quark remarked softly. Odo felt rather than heard the comment.

“Hm? What’s true?” asked Odo, almost as an autonomic response. To his own astonishment, he was feeling more serene than he had in years.

Quark balked. He must not have been expecting Odo to hear him. “Nothing that would interest you, I’m sure. Just remembered. Urgent appointment. Gotta run.” He made his excuses and dashed out of the room, not bothering to collect his tray, canapés, or dignity. The questioning, judgmental gaze of everyone in the room – including Worf, who had finished his ‘recitation’ – zeroed inexorably in on Odo.

There was only one thing that made sense to do, really.

**_“QUAAAAAAAAAARK!!!”_** bellowed Odo as he raced headlong after him.

Odo-that-was must have joined in on the exclamation unconsciously, for he could sense it traversing the Link in sluggish waves even as the thought-manifold deserted him. In a perfect parabola, he catapulted out of the roiling sea and plopped unceremoniously onto solid ground with the collective voice of the Link still thrumming in his every particle. _By now you must understand our motive,_ it admonished. _Myriads upon myriads of these, your manifolds, stacked to aleph-three in reckoning-height, and did they benefit the Link beyond learning all the behavioral intricacies of one solid? The Link grows weary with the ruminations of Odo-that-was on the escapades of Quark. Go now._

Dazed, still partially gelatinous, Odo managed to prop himself up onto his not-elbows. A scrap metal remnant glinted ominously before him.

The outcast lifted his gaze with trepidation, taking in a breadcrumb trail of spare parts, bits of insulation, and a blackened, warped, vaguely rectangular mass that could have been a cabin door in its former life.

Odo noted with a jolt that the door was moving in a faint, long-suffering manner. He gripped its gnarled edges and heaved.

A battered, beleaguered, and very grubby Ferengi, still curled against the impact, lay underneath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I maaaayyyy have let a few headcanons regarding communication within the Link run wild. Aleph-nought, aleph-three, etc. are references to the Cantor infinities, named after mathematician & philosopher Georg Cantor, who posited that there were different grades of infinite quantities. The largest infinite quantity he could describe was the number of possible polygonal shapes, which he named aleph-three; smaller grades include aleph-one, which describes the total number of all natural numbers, and aleph-two, which describes the total number of real numbers. In my headcanon, the Great Link sees itself as infinite beyond infinite, and individual "members" of it (being fractions of infinity) are still infinite, just to a lesser degree. This is also why I have made a stylistic choice to capitalize Link, even in verb form, while describing the process the Founders use to communicate - each party is entering the Link: even if they only observe a fraction of the whole, it's still an infinite view. "Thought-inscriptions" and the Link's nonchalance about time came from obsessing about Arrival. Oh, and the flashbacks Odo has due to a "manifold" one of these crashing into him? They're sort of like Riemannian manifolds made of pure thought...or bags of thought holding, perhaps... tl;dr I'm a huge nerd fight me


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a huge Flying Spaghetti Monster reference in here. I couldn't help myself. You have been warned.

_If this is some kind of trick, Quark, I’ll personally put you away for fabricating a medical emergency._

Hastily formed hands fumbling complex actions, forcibly jolted from years-old memory. Two fingers beneath the jaw, ear resting on center mass. _Not breathing. Pulse thready._

_Why couldn’t you have stayed on the station where you belonged? Why come all the way out here for no discernible purpose? Wait a minute: this jaunt of yours could not possibly have been approved through official channels. Where are the ship’s logs? There should have been at least some trace of them in the isolinear rods; there were none to be found…_

A hypo from the runabout’s first aid stores. Hands melding to form a compress. Metronomic impulses to the sternum. One, two, three, four…

_So you stole a runabout to come here. I can’t say I’m surprised. Do you want congratulations, Quark? Sanction, perhaps? Is that why you came all this way? To present to me the finest machination of your criminal mind?_

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, _come on_ , _wake up and smell the profits._

_Why won’t you wake up, Quark, surely it’s a simple matter even for you…_

_Quark._ A whiplike appendage, forming of its own volition, reaching out to slap Quark on the cheek, hard.

_Wake up._

_Quark!!!_ More appendages. More slapping. Nothing was working. Forty-one, forty-two…it was no use. Odo abruptly ceased his efforts, scuttling away from Quark as if he had received an electric shock, hand clamped over his mouth in dismay.

The oddest thought soon began to suffuse Odo’s entire being: odd for its content, to be sure, but odder still for its clarity.

 _You were right, you know_ , it insisted.

_Damn you to the Vault of Eternal Destitution, you were right. Don’t you want a chance to gloat about it?_

Silently petitioning nebulous deities for forgiveness, Odo retrieved another hypo and pressed it into Quark’s prone form – after all, it could not hurt matters. A hand reached out to interlace in Quark’s, feeling for all intents and purposes that this was its true natural state.

_You were right about me. I didn’t accept it at the time, but something about reminiscing in the Link tends to crystallize things._

“You were right, Quark. I’ll write it all over anywhere you want. Just wake up and explain yourself.”

Silence. Odo despaired, pressing Quark’s hand all the tighter.

After what seemed an eternity, there was a strangled splutter followed by a cascade of coughs. Quark sat bolt upright, his forehead colliding painfully with Odo’s. Swearing and grumbling, Quark set about massaging his skull. Once satisfied that it was not fractured, he gradually began to take in his surroundings. He inhaled sharply upon seeing Odo, who attempted to meet his gaze as levelly as possible. For a long moment, nothing stirred between them except the deafening rustlings of memory.

“Well, press me in gold and call me latinum,” Quark beamed, pulling Odo in for a hug. Odo felt as if he had just been subjected to rapid magnetic polarity shifts. Doubtfully, he blinked several times while encircling his charge. Once assured that Quark was not about to have another medical episode, he let out a relieved sigh and deepened the embrace.

“Quark, I…that is, there’s, er… something you should know.”

Quark patted him good-naturedly on the back. “Listen, Odo, I heard you the first time. No need to trouble yourself again on my account.” He broke their embrace just enough to free one hand, which formed a Ferengi rhetorical flourish. “‘Good news is a depreciating asset; the best news should therefore be conveyed only once.’ Rule of Acquisition number two hundred and eighty-seven.”

“That’s no Rule of Acquisition. You just made that up,” accused Odo.

“Yeah, I know. So what if I didn’t want you to make another grand emotional statement that would ultimately embarrass you? Who do you think would be left to pick up the pieces?”

At this, Odo rose indignantly to his feet. “Oh, look who’s talking! After all, you only showed up unbidden on my home planet by crashing a runabout into it, a _stolen_ runabout by all accounts, and on top of it all, you dared to be courting death when I found you!”

Quark saw Odo’s glare and raised him the smarmiest of smiles. “You gave me _excellent_ mouth-to-mouth. Death couldn’t hold a candle to you.”

“Did I? I…suppose I did…” He remembered not being terribly concerned with holding his shape, what with trying to keep Quark alive and all. Leaning over him at a certain angle must have produced something akin to mouth-to-mouth contact, but only in the loosest of all possible definitions. Odo certainly would not have called it ‘excellent’ if it had ever been visited on him as a solid. ‘Disturbing’, perhaps.

Quark cocked his head to one side, trying to decipher the cause of Odo’s discomfiture. “Too soon?” he inquired kindly.

Odo’s gaze softened. “No, Quark: I just think it’s about time you developed some standards.” He settled back down next to Quark and reached fingertips out to soothe his cheek, which was still flushed from being touched by Odo’s noodly appendage. Quark leaned into the caress like a puzzled hara cat. In response, Odo scooted closer to replace his hand with the suggestion of lips, brushing Quark’s cheek languorously before applying the same treatment to his jawline, then his mouth. This latter contact he prolonged without deepening, content to let Quark lead the way. And lead he did, as he encircled Odo’s shoulders with one hand and his waist with the other, dipping the shapeshifter at a subtle angle to find more purchase. Odo grinned into their kiss at this development, set about forming himself a tongue, and flicked the tip of it against Quark’s experimentally. Quark nearly dropped him in response. Odo scrambled back into a stable position (so what if it was in Quark’s lap; the Link was not interested in what he did anymore) and resumed the kiss, hands cradling Quark’s face while deliberately avoiding touching anything in the vicinity of his ears. When he perceived that this was in danger of becoming an undue frustration, he desisted, melding his hands to encircle Quark’s neck and meeting him nose to nose in a calming nuzzle. He was only proving a point, after all, and further forays would have to wait until after Quark had recuperated.

“Odo?” Quark hazarded weakly.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing. Everything. Hold me, please, I can’t take this.”

Odo did.

*******

After a long, reluctant while, they turned their attention to the runabout. It lurked in the middle distance, sending out tendrils of smoke that, while bearing a cursory resemblance to emergency flares, possessed none of their usefulness.

“You do realize that you will have to leave this planet eventually,” a supine Odo remarked – rather coldly, Quark thought.

“Quit ruining the mood,” he griped, nestling further against Odo’s side in protest. Neither deterred, nor neglectful of drawing Quark closer to him in reassurance, Odo continued.

“I am simply stating the obvious fact that your replicator will break down after a time. Not to mention that you might yearn for company other than mine after, oh, a year or so.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it.” Mischievous pinpricks of light danced in Quark’s eyes, disarming the trepidation in Odo’s. There had been a question between them to which Odo had not wished to give voice, not yet, and it appeared that Quark not only understood but had replied in kind. Odo broke into a rare genuine smile at this.

“Well, if that’s the case, there’s really no point in my staying here either.”

Brightening considerably, Quark propped himself onto an elbow to face Odo. “Really? Why’s that?”

The smile deserted Odo almost as soon as it had arrived; a trace of guardedness crept its insidious way back into otherwise streamlined features. “Quark, I’ve…I’ve been cast out from the Link once again,” he confessed.

As anticipated, the pronouncement had little effect on Quark’s mood. “What’d you do, stick your goo foot into someone’s goo eye?” he inquired flatly. Odo glared daggers at him. “What?! Solid humor. You’ll just have to get used to it again,” teased Quark, though any term of endearment he might have added took a back seat to the placating kiss he suddenly _had_ to give Odo for looking so unimpressed.

“Hmmmmmmph.” That subharmonic again, but this time Quark could feel it thrumming from the juncture of their lips. He shivered.

“You will, of course, excuse me for my total lack of sympathy,” murmured Quark several moments later, once he could tear himself just far enough away to be capable of speech.

“For now,” conceded Odo, a trace of his earlier smile returning. He inclined his head toward the derelict runabout. “I suppose I might as well help repair the craft you stole and come with you – even if only to see that it returns to its rightful owner.” A thought occurred to him. “My erstwhile people might lend their assistance as well; from what I gleaned in the Link, they didn’t seem too enamored of you, so they may be inclined to help you leave.”

Quark had never encountered the Link as a collective whole before – at least, not that he could remember. Of course, he had done a few notable things under various influences and gleaned the details of said things third-hand, but never to that magnitude…he was fairly sure. He was also fairly sure that not even he would have been able to engender spontaneous hatred of himself among an entire species he’d never met.

“Familiarity breeds contempt, Quark,” hinted Odo wryly, belying his own cliché with a fond kiss to Quark’s temple, then another. Neither Quark’s elation nor his gratitude were to last: almost immediately, various puzzle pieces that were hanging suspended and discrete in his mind came crashing into place. Pointing an accusatory finger at Odo, he scrambled backwards to his feet.

“ _You_ told them all about me. You told your entire extended goo family _all about me_.”

Odo bristled. “The Great Link is not _my_ _extended goo family_. At least, not anymore.” In no way was he prepared to let Quark guess the full extent of his responsibility for that turn of events.

“There’s only one way this can end, Odo,” declared Quark resolutely as he folded his arms. Odo, for his part, rose to meet him and mirrored the gesture.

“And which way is that?” he inquired, leaning so close that their noses almost touched. Quark jabbed a finger into Odo’s chest; Odo liquefied just enough so that the digit in question went partially through him. Quark pulled it back out in distaste.

“After you and your extended – sorry, your _estranged_ extended goo family fix the runabout, we’re going straight to Ferenginar so I can complain about you to _my_ family. Nothing short of that would be fair.”

“Must I be present for this touching reunion?”

“Yes, you must. As you are no doubt aware, my mother could kill a man at ten paces with a tooth sharpener – first by convincing him it’s in his best interest to off himself, then by debating the effectiveness of various home methods, and finally by selling him one at six hundred percent markup.”

“Impressive…though I dare say she’d approve of this development, seeing as I gallantly rescued you from certain profitless death on a distant planet.” Quark’s alleged hero grinned in a self-congratulatory manner. Far from riling Quark further, as Odo had anticipated, this served to quell something deep within him, certainly deeper than the game they had been playing. Gently, he rested a hand on Odo’s shoulder as a humorless chuckle escaped him. The message was clear: _there’s something you know nothing about and I’d prefer that it stays that way._

“On the contrary; she’d probably have thanked you if things had gone sideways.” Odo made to protest on Ishka’s behalf, but Quark was too quick to interrupt. “Besides, I brought vacuum-desiccation discs in case they did. You’d’ve known what to do with them.”

He could not deny that this was true, yet it did not make the scenario any more palatable. “But…what if I had never left the Link?” he asked, laying a hand over Quark’s and squeezing. _Perish the thought._

“It was a calculated risk. Not much to go back to in any case, and Moogie’s obviously doing well enough for herself without my help. Even if all I managed to do before croaking was bother your extended goo family – let me finish – knowing that you were in it somewhere, that would’ve been profitable enough for me.”

The undercurrent of despair in Quark’s tone was not lost on Odo. He began forming an unconscious Link at the origin of their hands. _Talk to me._ When he realized what he was doing – understood the invasion of privacy this would be to a solid; he knew, he remembered – he suppressed the instinct, dropped to his knees, and kindly gathered Quark’s remaining hand in his.

“Quark, did something happen on Deep Space Nine?” It was not such a long shot. He did, after all, once make a habit of letting Quark know what would happen if he were ever to cease his duties as chief of security. Guilt gnawed away at him.

“It’s just…not the same without you,” hedged Quark. He did not wish to discuss his bar – not yet, anyway. The last thing he needed was for Odo to careen right back to Deep Space Nine and into, well, _old habits_.

With a determined air, Odo stood up, disengaged, and gestured toward the gently smoking runabout. “Come on, I’m confiscating this vessel. We’ll get it repaired and return it to the station where it belongs.”

Quark arranged his features into a semblance of tractability. “Fine, Odo,” he acquiesced. “I’m all for returning it _after_ you’ve learned to categorize all one hundred and seventy-eight different types of rain, had my mother’s unsolicited opinions foisted on you, and endured my sincerest complaints about you with a smile on your face.”

“You’re in no position to make demands.”

“How about requests?”

Odo faced him for a long moment, sizing him up. A traitorous blush tinged Quark’s features.

“Hmph. You’re lucky I like you,” conceded Odo at last.

Steeped in the planet’s warm ocher glow, they meandered toward the craft, Quark’s muttered _“you can say that again”_ elegantly skirting the outer limits of Odo’s hearing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, someone in cardiac arrest wouldn't just walk it off like Quark seems to. Blame it on Ferengi physiology - or better yet, the Federation doctors who always seem to load up their hypos with all kinds of dubious substances. I'm not convinced that the ones in TOS aren't filled with chloroform.
> 
> Also, there's got to be a tradition among Ferengi - much like Festivus - wherein a guest is invited over purely so that the hosts can air grievances about them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for body horror of the helpful changeling variety - not that that's really what's bothering Quark deep down. Who could blame him?

Even with a Ferengi and seven changelings working overlapping shifts, the latter morphing themselves into motile tools when needed, the runabout was taking the better part of a week to repair. Quark was grateful for this, if only because of the sheer number of questions he had to field from Odo regarding life outside the Great Link.

“Morn’s your new _assistant?_ What does he do, drink up your unprofitable stock?”

“The only unprofitable stock I ever carried was that awful wine you liked as a solid. So no. You’d be surprised what he’s capable of when he puts his mind to it. Besides, he knows far more about the bar than anyone else on the station, Broik included.”

He hoped that Odo would wait a decently long while before inquiring after Colonel Kira. The last few days had passed in a blissful haze, a sort of pocket realm in which the only hint of reality involved cobbling his craft back together; in short, wherein the mundane dared not rear its head. Yet Quark just _knew_ that it would all come lunging back after him once Odo made inevitable mention of her. The constable had been more madly in love with her than Quark ever imagined possible, certainly for someone who took such pride in his cold, calculating persona and professional neutrality. At one time, Quark had forlornly questioned whether changelings even possessed the capability to fall in love; with then-Major Kira’s advent, he had deduced that his immutable nature as a solid, by itself, had not been to blame.

But what had? It had haunted him for ages before it finally clicked, one contemplative evening about a week after Odo had left the station.

_I was too busy doing to him exactly what he was doing to me right after he and Colonel Kira got together. Making a clean break of it. Hoping he’d pick the slack back up, out of confusion if nothing else._

_I apologized for the Cardassian neck trick incident, but did I ever think of apologizing after suggesting the shapeshifting-for-profit scheme? No. After that happened I assumed he just didn’t have the lobes for it, but more than that I resented him for shutting me out. I’m a_ bartender _, for crying out loud: it’s in my job description to take complaints graciously. Did he really think I couldn’t handle the truth about what was bothering him? I was furious at coming that close to having a decent business partner on Terok Nor and being treated so dismissively all of a sudden, so I…detached. Moreover, I actively antagonized. For_ years _._

_Then he did the exact same thing back at me when he started seeing Kira. Maybe he was trying to get rid of emotional loose ends, since he made his choice and he seemed prepared to live with it…at least until his extended goo family came calling. And to think I had the gall to be surprised about it, and to wonder what had happened._

His grip faltered. A changeling, who had taken the form of a tricorder, shut itself off as it slipped out of Quark’s hand. It leapt back into the Link before it could hit the ground, clearly miffed. Sensing a disturbance, scaffolding-Odo shot out a makeshift head to peer over the top of the vessel.

“Is everything all right, Quark?” he asked, not unkindly. In Quark’s opinion, Odo had become far too protective of him ever since finding him in the runabout’s wreckage.

“My health’s fine, Odo, don’t panic,” he replied. He wished the other changelings would prioritize soldering the hull back on so that Odo could take a different form – any other form would do, given a choice over that rickety stilted body topped with a head that could only be described as grotesque in its familiarity.

“Something unrelated to your health, then?” Odo continued gazing at Quark, who had a very difficult time gazing back.

“Odo, look,” explained Quark with an affectation of calm that fooled nobody. “We have a job to do. We’re already short one changeling. Let’s just keep at it, okay?” To demonstrate his seriousness, he brandished a wrench from the runabout’s inadequate toolkit. “No doubt you’re anxious to get back to the station,” he added gracelessly.

“As I recall, I acquiesced to your unreasonable demand to visit Ferenginar first – how does that betray any anxiousness to return to Deep Space Nine?” Odo remarked, though not without hesitation at Quark’s tone.

“You’re just good at hiding it,” muttered Quark.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know damn well what it means.”

“Quark…this isn’t about Nerys, is it?” Some of Odo’s spidery limbs contracted at this, creaking plaintively.

Quark couldn’t take it anymore. “What gave it away?” he snarled as he threw away the wrench. “Look, Odo, at least from my vantage point you were dangerously in love with her. So dangerously so that _she_ was the one who made you come to your senses after Linking with that fe-male changeling. Not me, not my brother, not the fact that he was going to be _executed_.  I backed you up the whole time, because I knew that it wasn’t really in your nature to leave us hanging. All we were witnessing was your complete inability to resist fe-male wiles! Don’t believe me? How about that time when you sacrificed _eight thousand lives_ in another timeline to keep Kira safe, no doubt leaving the other me to die of turf war or old age wondering what became of you. How do you think I feel knowing that you could abandon a member of my family like that? Knowing that you good as killed eight thousand people for a woman who needed a _singing hologram_ to intervene before she could figure out if she loved you or not? How can I know you won’t do something like that again, leaving me or mine high and dry while you up your body count some more?”

There was a fraught silence. Then Odo swelled in height and terribleness, looming over Quark as he had never loomed in his life, casting disobedient shadows at wrong angles.

“Quark, do _not_ ask me to explain the actions of a…a _simulacrum_ who spent two hundred years on an isolated colony watching the _Defiant’s_ crew, then its descendants, then their descendants, wither and die! Yes, we Linked and he shared with me his motivations, but ever since the _Defiant_ crashed and did not crash on that planet, the multiverse branched and we are therefore very much not the same person! Indeed, before the…crash-that-was-and-was-not, that Odo and I both harbored affection for Nerys and were both equally committed to leaving it be!” A beat, then he relented somewhat, retreating into his functional if uncanny frame.

“Yet he _insisted_ when he crossed my path…and what with the death of eight thousand individuals on my conscience, chiseled in stone as something I was in fact capable of doing over a loved one, just like in those Bajoran novels of which I am so fond, I…I had to see it through. I had to try to…make it count, somehow. That affection I had sublimated rose to the surface once more. Never once did I ask myself whether I was carrying out my own free will, or atoning for unspeakable guilt.

As for what happened during the Dominion War, I confess that the primal pull of home overwhelmed everything else within me during that time, and the supreme indifference to all proceedings resulting from that Link proved a profoundly heady intoxicant. I had never experienced its like, nor was I prepared to; the female changeling would have known this full well, of course. My feelings for Nerys were foremost in my mind due to my having just thought-inscribed them in the Link, so, naturally, hearing that she was in mortal danger brought me out of it. Of course, nothing comes of turning a blind eye, and…it should never, _ever_ have led where it did.

I do hope you are not asking me for a few inadequate, imprecise, solid words to make it all better. You and I both know that I can never hope to answer either for what my counterpart did, or for what I failed to do while Linking before I was ready. The only thing I can do is promise that nothing of either sort will happen again, in any timeline in which I have the slightest bit of agency.”

Odo steeled himself, waiting for Quark’s inevitable verdict. His ungainly appendages sprouted reinforcing rivets.

“Okay, Odo,” muttered Quark at last, “Rom and Leeta and my mother all forgave you a long time ago, largely on my say-so. I happen to know you well enough to accept that you had your reasons. I just don’t want to have to make excuses about you to them ever again, okay? It might not hurt if you thought twice before sauntering back to the Great Link, after everything they did to you and all the terrible things you did under their influence.”

“It’s not as if I have much of a choice in the matter,” Odo reminded Quark irritably.

“Right, because they pull you in and throw you out like a hew-mon baseball. Just…if the issue comes up again, remember what happened last time. Who knows? It might do you good to visit some people who give you the benefit of the doubt for a change.”

Quark had a point, but Odo was not about to concede it to him. He let out a long-suffering sigh that prompted his stilted form to fall in on itself, necessitating further repairs to the hull.

***

After days of tedious labor, in the process of which two more changelings objected to working conditions and quit, the runabout had been patched to warp capability. Quark had insisted on diverting some of the insulation to the dormitory, which he claimed had proven too cold to sleep in properly, and Odo had made some unspecified last-minute ‘improvements’ to the computer interface. Having taken the craft on a perfunctory shakedown run across the planet’s occidental hemisphere, they both agreed that it was indeed spaceworthy once more, or at least as much so as they could hope for under the circumstances.

Back in his usual form, Odo made sure to thank the remaining Founders for their assistance before boarding the vessel with Quark. Once within, they wasted little time in powering up all systems: Quark evidently enjoyed the pageantry of pre-flight, surveying the instruments as he was and announcing each task in its proper order. It led Odo to reflect that Quark may yet turn out to have more in common with his nephew than he had previously thought possible.

There was an inelegant _clunk,_ a hiss of hydraulics, and the craft was suddenly hovering a few feet above the island.

“We’re taking off…it’s taking off…Computer, set a course for the wormhole – if you can, no pressure,” Quark suggested, nervousness suffusing his tone.

“Course laid in and set, ye of little faith,” retorted the computer. Dumbfounded, Quark shot a glance at Odo, who shrugged noncommittally. “Changeling humor. You’ll just have to get used to it,” he teased.

A quarter of an hour passed without incident, Quark’s catastrophism notwithstanding. Satisfied by the runabout’s display of functionality, he crept up behind Odo and gave his shoulders a little squeeze. “It’ll take us a few days to get to the wormhole and another day or so to get to Ferenginar. Any ideas on how to pass the time?”

“Not what you have in mind, I’m sure,” came Odo’s prim reply, though for once Quark’s intentions had been at least vaguely chaste in nature. “I thought I would catch up on some reading, since you were kind enough to save my place in _Under The Cloak Of Night_ ,” he added, holding up a cracked padd he had found among some other debris. Quark swallowed hard: his rampant sentimentality had evidently not been lost on Odo.

“Be a wet blanket, why don’t you,” complained Quark, even while fondness crept through his affectation and overshadowed it. He patted Odo’s shoulder and received a small nuzzle to his wrist in return, which made him wonder if he would ever – could ever – get used to this.

“No thank you; I like this form well enough,” Odo murmured, though the playful glint in his eyes belied any hint that he had not understood the expression. Then, without a moment’s hesitation –

“I’ll be in my bunk,” he added, completely innocently.

“Are you kidding me right now, Odo?”

“No. What did I say that was so comical?”

“You wouldn’t understand, believe me,” Quark assured him in between fits of suppressed glee. Odo, for his part, was not amused.

“Would it kill you to pry your mind out of the waste extraction system, Quark? Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I’ll be in my bunk if you need me.”

“Noted,” managed Quark, returning to the navigational console as calmly as he could.

After about an hour of checking the automated calculations and generally finding them to his standards, Quark got up and paced around the cabin. For lack of a better way to pass the time, he strolled over to the replicator and ordered a snail juice. He could not help himself: he stole a glance inside the sleeping quarters as he drank the concoction. Odo was indeed in his bunk, eyes closed, resting comfortably, his padd cradled in a relaxed hand. Quark jolted as he realized that Odo’s other hand, which was currently hanging off the edge of the makeshift bed, had begun to drip. How long had it been since Odo last regenerated? No bucket in sight…

“Get me a bucket!” he hissed desperately to the replicator.

“After that snail juice? Can’t say I’m surprised,” the replicator shot back, dispensing a nondescript aluminum bucket with an ill-fitting handle. Quark made a rude gesture to the machine and set about inspecting the bucket’s craftsmanship. Finding no glaring defects, to his surprise, he sneaked furtively into the room and placed the receptacle around Odo’s runny hand. Resolving to point out at the earliest opportunity that pretending to be asleep only worked if one’s species slept, Quark turned to leave Odo in the solitude he so obviously craved.

There was a minute creak from behind him, and before he knew it he was being enfolded tenderly in a glutinous pair of arms.

“Thank you, Quark. I must not have grasped the extent of my exhaustion. Please, stay if you want to.”

“You’re too kind,” Quark replied. He felt very strange: torn between entirely too much enjoyment of Odo’s affection and anxiety at the prospect of getting changeling goo on his clothes. Noting Quark’s apparent discomfort, Odo relinquished his hold and stepped into the bucket.

“Until morning, then,” he said, smiling, before beginning his reversion in earnest. Out of courtesy more than anything, Quark busied himself with something else: namely, trying to climb into the top bunk without the luxury of a ladder. Not that he was in a position to complain about much of anything, but Odo could have at least given him a leg up first.

As he drifted off, Quark listened to the tranquil sounds of Odo regenerating, which formed a melismatic counterpart to the droning warp core. Once sleep came to him, he dreamed; when he dreamed, he dreamed of home – and home did not have everything to do with Ferenginar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Top on my cursed angsty fanfic to-do list: endless attempts at conversation with the Quark math program on the colony make a nostalgic Oldo go peculiar...I hate Children of Time so much. 
> 
> So they finally had the Post-Canon Confrontation They Needed To Have. If you'd be so inclined, please drop me a line to let me know whether or not did it justice. If I were going for pure unmitigated angst I would spend more time exploring these themes, but as is...I'm happy as long as Odo is sufficiently sorry about what happened and Rom forgives him. Perhaps in another fic.


	5. Chapter 5

A thunderstorm had incapacitated the dehumidifier. Again.

Rest proved elusive for Leeta. After innumerable tosses and turns, experimental sleeping poses, pillow boxing matches, and passive-aggressive deep breathing exercises, her nightgown still clung in all the wrong places and her hair still felt like a sodden mop. All told, capitulation and a cup of tea sounded like an attractive combination. Being careful not to wake Rom, she eased out of bed, took a comb from her nightstand, and attacked her hair with it. It was then that she noticed that, while there was indeed an indentation in the mattress where Rom should have been, her husband was nowhere to be found.

“Rom?” ventured Leeta. Silence ensued, then some muffled clanking, then…

“I’mmmmm just fixing the dehumidifier. Won’t be a moment, my sweet!”

She let out a fond, if exasperated, sigh. Rom had been Grand Nagus for over a year now and he still refused to hire anyone to perform any task, no matter how menial, that he could do just as well.

Leeta lit a dim oil lamp, padded to the kitchen, and began brewing a pot of Tarkalean tea. She had only been planning on making one cup, but Rom would probably want some after he finished…and besides, she had been drinking more than her share of it this past week.

Living on Ferenginar had proved not to be as insurmountable an adjustment as she had feared. The sweeping decrees of the previous Grand Nagus and his indefatigable advisor, her own mother-in-law, had ensured that she retained all the legal rights and privileges she would have enjoyed on Bajor. Spotting an opportunity for Rom to mend fences, she had once facilitated a lucrative partnership with Pel, who had recently returned from Andoria bearing a staggering fortune. The success of the alliance had earned Leeta great respect among Ferengi businessmen and women alike. All in all, she was very content with her life – the only question that nagged at her these days was why she had started craving Tarkalean tea so much.

On top of the various tinkering noises emanating from the main hallway, there came a dull _clunk_ from the opposite direction, near the front door. Latinum through the bribe slot, no doubt. Who would think of visiting the Nagal residence at this hour?

Leeta considered just ignoring whoever it was. The Grand Nagus was currently mending a recalcitrant dehumidifier in his pajamas – and besides, one would have to be out of one’s mind, severely deficient in business sense, or both to request an audience with him at 0130 hours. However, a second and much heavier _clunk_ soon convinced Leeta of their visitor’s insistence. She would have to do something, even if only to send the supplicant in question on their way to Destitution Rock.

She donned a plush paisley bathrobe before opening the door a crack, leaving all five latinum-plated chains firmly in place.

His wife’s sudden yelp startled Rom so much that he hit his head on the main vent. “What’s wrong, Leeta? Leeeeeta, I’m comingggggg!” Scattering tools pell-mell across the floor, he catapulted into the entryway, where he came face to face with none other than his brother. Leeta had let Quark in and was surveying the scene in a nonplussed manner.

“What’re you doing here, brother?” asked Rom. “Not that I’m not pleased to see you, it’s just, uhhh, unexpected. Essspecially at this hour.” Hastily, he hid the screwdriver he was holding behind his back.

“Family prerogative. I figured this was the only time of day you wouldn’t have petitioners out your ears. It’s about our mother, Rom.”

“Oh no. Is Moogie all right??”

“She’s fine; keep your headdress on. We’re going to go see her and Zek in the morning and she wondered if you two were free to come along.”

“I’d love to! I haven’t seen Ishka in forever,” replied Leeta.

“I can always make time to see Moogie, buuuut…who’s ’we’?”

“I brought someone back with me to visit her,” Quark explained with a satisfied smirk. Family grievance-airings were his favorite, and the fact that Odo would be the subject of this one was icing on the slug.

Leeta, who had been starved for rumors for so long, perked up at the news. “Not Pel?” she breathed. “Last I heard she took up with Nilva, but my sources aren’t too reliable...”

“…no, not Pel,” replied Quark in confusion. He directed her attention to the brick of latinum lying on its side by her feet. She scrutinized it for a time before making sense of Quark’s figure of speech.

“Quark, I’m sure that would be a very sweet gesture on your part, but you know that she doesn’t need your pension and hasn’t for a long time! She makes more of those in a –“

To his relief, Quark never got to find out how many bricks of latinum his mother made in an unspecified amount of time, for the brick in question had begun reshaping itself into a more recognizable humanoid form. Odo was all business: crisp Bajoran uniform, smartly crossed arms, set jaw, haughty expression. In Quark’s humble opinion, Odo had no right to look that attractive under any circumstances.

Rom sized the shapeshifter up doubtfully. With a pang, Quark wondered if he could be rethinking his forgiveness of Odo for events that had transpired in the Dominion War. When he spoke, however, he took everyone except Leeta by surprise.

“But, brother, I always thought you wanted a traditional Ferengi wife!” he exclaimed.

“Nice to see you too, Rom,” grumbled Odo.

“Did you really just go there, you idiot?” Quark snapped. He stole another glance at Odo: the way he saw it, the man was bringing this on himself – plus, he deserved to suffer a little more for the Dominion War-era disaster. “Have it your way,” he told Rom. “ _I did._ _Things change._ Remember Lumba?”

“Wwwwhat about her?”

“I learned something from the experience, okay?” he pressed on.

“You learned to like men?” inquired Rom brightly.

“I liked men fine before. That’s not the point. The point is that our fe-males traditionally get a very raw deal. I spent all of two days as one and it chafed, literally and figuratively.” Quark shuddered at the memory. “But a _five-year_ marriage contract? Resentment’s bound to build up and explode. I can’t handle that kind of ticking time bomb! Being Lumba just made it all the clearer: I want something more egalitarian, if only for the health benefits to both sides.” He glanced apologetically at Odo, who stooped to lay a hand on Quark’s brow, evidently checking for a fever.

“Tell me, Quark, are you feeling all right?”

“Yes, no thanks to you,” blushed Quark.

“That’s certainly egalitarian!” Rom enthused, punching the air gleefully with his screwdriver.

Leeta, who had been observing the proceedings with quiet amusement, folded her arms in a wry parallel to Odo as she addressed her brother-in-law. “You know, I’m proud of you, Quark,” she asserted. “You were able to recognize your preconceptions for what they were, discard the ones that were not helping you any more, and be true to yourself! You’ve certainly come a long way from when I was working for you.”

“Passed up a lot of opportunities for oo-mox since then, too,” confessed Quark.

“What’s more important?” Leeta shot back, clearly unimpressed at his forbearance.

“Don’t ask me that right now; you might not like the answer. Gooier-Than-Thou has been holding out on me.”

At this, Rom fixed Odo with a look of deepest shock and disappointment. “Odooo! Why would you hold out on my brother?”

“Would someone please inform me why it is necessary that we discuss this?!” came Odo’s muffled growl. Having found few traces of sanity in his surroundings, he had elected to bury his shaking head in his hands.

“Because I’m complaining about you. It’s a time-honored tradition,” Quark reminded him. He turned to face his brother and sister-in-law. “Tell you what, though: why don’t we break this up for the night. We’ve disturbed you kids enough this evening and you should really head on back to bed. It’s late.”

“Yes, you’ve been very disturbing,” joked Leeta, “but please don’t worry about imposing – you’re family, after all. We have guest quarters here: if you don’t already have somewhere to stay, feel free to make yourselves at home. There’s some Tarkalean tea in the kitchen, Quark, and probably some leftover hasperat. Rom can show you around.”

Pressing his wrists together in thanks, Quark headed toward the kitchen with Rom. Leeta remained behind with Odo, making sure that both Ferengi were out of earshot well before she spoke.

“Odo…between you and me, I’ve never seen my brother-in-law this emotionally invested in anyone. Ever.” At this, Odo faced her in awe: the transcendent warmth from his gaze had the effect of stunning Leeta into momentary silence. She composed herself just in time for a sneeze to overtake her.

“Bless you, Leeta,” said Odo, and meant it – but that was far from the end. Leeta sneezed five more times in quick succession, her expression widening with each one in dawning comprehension. There was a crash of breaking china from the kitchen as Rom came running, his brother close on his heels.

***

Quark’s head spun as he pulled on his pajamas. He was about to spend the night in the Nagal residence; his sister-in-law was going to have a baby; Rom was over every known moon about it; and, most importantly, that piece of news would discourage scrutiny into alleged developments in his own life. For now.

He would never have made such an extrapolation voluntarily. It had been Leeta and that relationship-obsessed fe-male brain of hers that had made the jump from ‘bringing someone to visit Mother’ to _bringing someone home to Mother._ There was a difference. Quark had self-indulgently (if ill-advisedly) let the misunderstanding be. Blessed Exchequer only knew how Odo had taken the whole affair.

Quark found himself glaring at the Ming vase that Rom had offered Odo as a regeneration vessel during his stay. It was a priceless artifact from ancient Earth, and even Rom would never have loaned such a treasure to ought but family. Once Leeta’s good news invariably depreciated, how would his mother take it if Odo were to back out of an arrangement that had never technically existed in the first place? Would he ever hear the end of it?

Maybe he should not have been so hasty in stealing a runabout and crashing it on the Founders’ homeworld. It might behoove him to have a comparable plan saved up in case he ever made even more of a mess of things.

Thousand-thread-count sheets greeted him as he climbed into bed, back curling to face the door. As far as he could tell, Odo was not present in the room. Quark let out a forlorn sigh: what had possessed him to enable Rom and Leeta’s misunderstanding like that? If his chances had not already been shot to pieces with Odo, they would be now.

 _He saved your life, you know. He said you were right about him loving you. That has to mean something_ , Quark scolded himself.

_A lot of good it did me. Anyway, even if he loves me, I have a gift for screwing things up with him – just look at the shapeshifting-for-profit incident. What in the name of the Eternal Vault had that been about anyway?_

Just as Quark was drifting miserably off, a gentle hand rustled the covers and turned them down. Quark draped them back over his shoulders in annoyance. Only when the mattress dipped beside him did he grudgingly turn around.

“I thought you might have been sleeping,” came Odo’s quiet rumble. Quark fixed him with a wan look before turning his back on him again.

“I usually snore when I’m asleep. For future reference. Which you won’t use.”

“Says you,” protested Odo, reaching an arm around to encircle Quark, who pushed it away.

“Where were you just now?” Quark asked neutrally.

“Obtaining my bucket from the runabout.”

“Ming vases not good enough for you to regenerate in?”

“On the contrary: I did not wish to take advantage of such extreme hospitality.”

“Yeah, I see your point.” Quark pulled the covers up further, ignoring Odo’s presence as best he could. Odo did not quite know what to make of this.

“Quark, you seem troubled,” he remarked. “Is there anything I can do to help? Anything at all?”

Quark surveyed him narrowly, debating whether or not to call his bluff. “There is, actually,” he replied at last. He sat up and propped himself on a profusion of pillows, facing Odo. “You can tell me why it is that you left my bar in such a rush that one day, back when the station was still under Cardassian control. That time I brought up shapeshifting for profit. Was it only because of what I said?”

Odo blinked in alarm. _So Quark had noticed something that day after all._ Not wishing for Quark to recognize the gravity of his request, Odo elected to brush him off and distract him instead. “Tell you a story? That’s all? I thought you of all people could come up with a bit…grander of a request,” Odo insinuated, as he hit Quark with his best bedroom eyes.

“Well…the story’d be a down payment,” Quark hedged, flushing brightly. “You know what they say: lovemaking never hurt a good cause. Rule of Acquisition number two hundred and eighty-eight.”

“Hmph. I will take it under advisement,” conceded Odo. He found Quark’s growing collection of apocryphal Rules rather endearing.

“Don’t ponder it for too long, please, Odo,” Quark begged, pressing his wrists together.

Odo rolled his eyes. “ _Must_ you be so demanding? I’m disappointed, Quark. I’d rather hoped that you would allow me to do something you would not expect – perhaps even encouraging me to catch you off guard.” Without warning, he seized Quark by the ears, eliciting a startled yelp. For an electric moment they remained suspended, Odo utterly still, his grasp intransigent, Quark not daring to breathe.

“But, if you prefer predictable and pedestrian…” Odo added, releasing his grip with tortuous slowness, trailing his fingers down Quark’s lobes before settling them on his shoulders.

“Point taken,” breathed Quark, his voice taking on multiple harmonics at once. He cleared his throat. “Tell me, though, please, it’s bothered me for so long. I would consider it a good faith gesture on your part.”

With a pang, Odo reasoned that, since the idea had not quit Quark after that little diversion, there would be no chance of its quitting him at any point in the future. “I…suppose I could indulge you…but I would prefer to start rather earlier than that meeting of ours, provided you have no objections.” Odo appropriated a pillow and situated himself into a comfortable reclining pose. His movements were cautious, meditative, and calculated. “If I am to open that can of grubs, as you Ferengi so colorfully put it, then you might as well be familiar with the context.”

“What kind of context are we talking here?” asked Quark, settling snugly into Odo’s arms.

The abyssal chuckle that escaped Odo bore no hint of mirth. “The real reason why I don’t do faces very well,” he replied.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CAVEAT LECTOR. Warning for descriptions of psychological torture, pathological perfectionism, Stockholm syndrome, and residual trauma. It gets rough in here, folks.

“I would like to preface this by assuring you that Dr. Mora was no tyrant. He was a professional under tremendous pressure from the Cardassian occupiers to produce results. When he found me and realized what I could do, he must have projected no end of hopes and dreams upon this nondescript substance, one that had sophisticated biomimetic capabilities, one that he could mold with such creative control! He was never much of a believer, but at that time I’m sure he felt that the Prophets had favored him. Therefore, he cannot be blamed for overzealousness in these circumstances, particularly before realizing that I was in fact sentient. That being said, his ‘training’ awoke in me something that I have not been able to lay to rest since, except for very rare times within the Link.

It started simply enough. On Bajor, they call it _shammat._ On Earth, Pavlovian conditioning. I do not know if there is a term for it here on Ferenginar. The basic idea behind it is that the test subject learns to associate certain external stimuli with certain outcomes. A targ will begin to equate the sound of a ringing bell with a meal if both occur regularly at the same time, to the point where it will salivate simply upon hearing the bell ring. Conversely, it might shrink away from even the gentlest of handlers if it hears a noise that it has learned to equate with being hit. _Shammat_ is still considered an acceptable, even a preferable, means of training for household pets and the like. It is indeed effective at producing desired behaviors when practiced consistently and with compassion. Dr. Mora may have applied it to me compassionately, but there came a time wherein he decided to forego the consistency as part of his experimentation – just to see how I would react, just to make sure that my instinctual behaviors had not been repressed.

It was chaos. I did everything he asked and more, and still the shocks would come. Not every time, just often enough to keep me guessing. It was so clinical, so calculated. From my vantage point, I had two choices: to overperform in hopes that he would have mercy on me, or to rebel. Though I did have my willful moments, I found myself choosing the former more often than not. I would morph into lovingly detailed, exquisite versions of the creatures and things he asked me to mimic, and for a while I even told myself I enjoyed it, enjoyed being capable of such artistry. The truth was that I was doing it to avoid unspeakable pain. At that point, that might have been the only instinct I had left.

He’d seemed pleased at my progress, but he had Cardassian supervisors to answer to and they would not allow him to sit idly back and enjoy the fruits of his research. Oh no. So, naturally, he kept the shocks coming…fewer and further between, but there would be the occasional surprise. I never knew until much later that continuing the shocks had not been his idea in the slightest. As before, I had no recourse. I just kept adding more detail, more variety to my shapeshifting repertoire – it was never enough to satisfy him, never enough to guarantee that he would leave me alone.

Ever so gradually, my resentment born of the shocks gave way to gratitude for the time between them. Not long after that came the day when Dr. Mora asked me to shift a humanoid face for him.

I was both excited and daunted at the new project to which he was assigning me. Of course, his face was the one I chose to mimic, as I knew it remarkably well from all the time spent peering back at him through the glass. It would be a gamble: what if I got it horribly wrong and offended him? Somehow, though, I just knew I would be able to do it.

I referred back to my thought-topology, so meticulous, mapped to every last pore…I concentrated harder than I ever had in my life…and for a reason I still cannot name, the result was what you see here.”

Odo broke from his reverie long enough to offer Quark a bittersweet smile. Quark let out a compassionate sigh as he cradled Odo’s face between his hands, thumbs caressing his sculpted cheeks.

“At that moment, a Cardassian overseer entered the lab. Undoubtedly, she had hoped to take a closer look at Dr. Mora’s famous shapeshifting substance. It would have been completely against regulations to barge into someone’s lab like that, of course, but rank does have its privileges. She looked at me, looked back at Dr. Mora, performed some mental arithmetic…and I will never forget what she said to him.

She said, ‘Is this the caliber of scientific inquiry we are promoting? You, alone in your lab with the vaunted _unknown sample_ , teaching it to make a poor mockery of your narcissism? You must be so proud.’ Then she slapped him across the face, so hard that he lost consciousness. He…fell directly onto the lever that administered the shocks; I need not clarify that she left him there until he came to, about an hour later.

From that point on it became a mania for him. I needed to perform at a level I could not have dreamed of attaining, not only for my own survival but for his. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, I still could not do faces very well. He made sure I could do that damned neck trick, though…there was no avoiding that one.

The pressure became too great to bear. I believe now that Dr. Mora understood my struggle as a father might have; if his livelihood had not been in such jeopardy he would likely have taken me aside and worked through it with me, patiently, without any…negative motivational means. As it was, there was no margin of error whatsoever. Quite simply, he required me to be perfect.

Every time I made the slightest error – maybe giving my swallow’s form one too many dorsal guiding feathers – a shock. He had not neglected to increase the voltage. And yet, I had come to accept that I deserved those shocks and more. I even looked forward to them, because they quieted the internal punishments I was always meting out to myself. Punishments for being less than, for giving less than, for being a fallible…sample. For forcing Dr. Mora’s hand. For not having an identity or purpose besides the mimicry of the other. Being nothing would have been a kindness compared to that, so when they gave me the moniker of Odo Ital, I embraced it. Far better to be thought of as a nothing than exposed as a fraud and a disgrace.

I never did learn how to do faces very well, and since having one perfectly formed was not required for my duties on Terok Nor, I stopped trying to improve it after a time. Perhaps that was my own small attempt at rebellion. I developed an aversion to shapeshifting beyond that which was required of me in the line of duty - hence my reluctance to show you the Cardassian neck trick, and my refusal to go along with that ridiculous scheme of yours. Eventually, my people were able to restore a certain enjoyment of my abilities to me. They have been many other things, done many other things, manipulated me into doing things for which I will forever hold them in judgment - what happened with your brother foremost among them - but I am grateful for that small gift of theirs. It can still be…challenging, at times, to quiet that punishing voice, despite what they taught me.”

As he concluded, he glanced in trepidation at his audience. Quark’s eyes, brimming with unshed tears, regarded him as if he had personally hung every moon in the galaxy. Odo gathered the hands that outlined his face, proffering soft kisses to the palms – words were insufficient to communicate his gratitude. Yet one matter requiring a measure of verbal resolution still remained…

“Quark, you have my deepest apologies if I have indeed been ‘holding out on you’, as you put it so euphemistically. I assure you that it has nothing to do with any reluctance on my part; it’s simply hard to believe that you would want someone like me in the first place.”

“Believe it, Odo,” managed Quark hoarsely.

“And, naturally, as a perfectionist of the highest order, I aim not to disappoint,” Odo added with a wry smile.

“You think I’m a paragon of flawlessness? Of course you don’t, yet for some reason I haven’t quite worked out yet, you still appear to be fond enough of me.”

“Quark…”

“Odo, my point is that most people don’t demand perfection from their associates. I certainly don’t want anything from you other than you, whether you believe that you’re at your best or your worst. I want to be there on the days when you feel like morphing into an omnidimensional tesseract _and_ the days when you don’t want to leave your bucket. I’m all in and you’d better get used to the idea.”

If Odo could have wept, he would have done so. “You meant it. You truly meant it when you said you loved me,” he exclaimed brokenly, embracing Quark as deeply as his current form would allow.

“I’ve always loved you, Odo – and I like to think I have a fairly accurate picture of who you really are, having spent the better part of ten years trying to remain one step ahead of you. You’re formidable,” he said, squeezing Odo’s shoulder. “Truly formidable in every sense.” Quark pulled back just enough to face him directly. “You’re also set in your ways, no fun whatsoever and a complete fascist, but I wouldn’t have you any other way.” At this, Odo proceeded to wipe the smugness off Quark’s face by entangling him in a languid kiss.

“With a clear conscience, against my own better judgment, and very much aware that Dr. Mora will want to write a paper about it, I admit I love you too,” Odo professed once Quark came up for air.

Quark’s mien grew defiant. “Let him,” he replied, “if writing a paper’s the only way he can understand love.”


	7. Chapter 7

Everyone rose rather blearily the following morning. Leeta’s elation had kept her wide awake, Rom had channeled his own excitement into rebuilding the dehumidifier from scratch, and Quark and Odo had remained deep in conversation until the small hours. While polishing off a quick breakfast, Leeta could not help casting a wistful glance at the strong raktajinos Rom and Quark clutched in their hands. Off-limits for at least five months…how would she manage?

Quark recognized that look immediately: then-Major Kira had worn it on a fairly consistent basis. “What you need, my dear, is a Quarktajino. Let me just program the formula into your replicator here.” He strolled over to it and began punching in a complex series of algorithms.

Rom took umbrage at this. “I don’t want her drinking that swamp sludge, brother!” he opined.

“It’s all right, Rom,” reassured Leeta, calmly taking his free hand in hers. “It’s a perfectly healthy drink and I don’t like feeling left out. Maybe if _you_ were to give up coffee too...” She gave him a knowing smile.

“Ummmmm…no thanks,” Rom conceded. Leeta draped her arms around him and kissed his cheek. “Oh, Rom. You’re so adorable,” she crooned. Her brother-in-law looked on with a bittersweet expression.

“Quark, where’s Odo?” Leeta inquired, upon disengaging from Rom.

“Still regenerating. We stayed up pretty late.”

“Did you now?” She offered Quark a playful wink.

“It wasn’t what you think. You need to get out more, Leeta,” Quark admonished.

“Is he still holding out on you?!?” asked Rom indignantly.

“No, Rom. Look, drop it, both of you, okay? I’m sorry I ever told you.” Quark took an irritable pull of coffee as he got up to leave the kitchen. Unable to stand it anymore, Leeta busied herself with ordering a Quarktajino from the replicator, to Rom’s poorly concealed consternation.

Quark paced up and down the hallway, passing the rebuilt dehumidifier on each leg of the trip. It was emitting a faint hum that served to blot Leeta and Rom’s voices out. Good. That meant he could concentrate.

The events of the previous night troubled him a great deal, and not just because of Odo’s tale. In an effort to be relatable and comforting, Quark had ignored his inner censor and divulged what he now recognized as far too much information. He had confessed that he sometimes felt unsure of his purpose. That this sense of listlessness had worsened after his mother started earning all that latinum: to whom would he need to send a pension now? That even Morn had no real use for him; he could run, and _was_ running, the bar just fine without his help. That at least back when Odo had hounded his steps on the station, there was an overarching reason behind everything he undertook. That he considered himself a failed Ferengi. With such a damning moniker, what kind of existence could he possibly eke out for himself? What was the point?

Despite initial misgivings, Quark had also revealed that he had been planning not to survive the crash. He had told Odo about the note to Morn, which had handed all holdings over to his employee without further explanation – other than a warning that he “might be gone awhile.” Odo had already known about the desiccation discs, so he skimmed over that part. Finally, Quark had expressed his desire to orchestrate one last stunt to prove that he was, in fact, everything Odo had always suspected: a depraved criminal of the worst sort. At least he could then claim some distinguishing feature, some reason for having existed.

And Odo had held him, desperately, raggedly, with clutching hands, as if to communicate value through touch. While Quark had relished the contact, the message had been lost in translation.

Soon, Odo emerged from the guest quarters looking, if possible, even sharper than he had before. “Ah, look who’s finally up,” remarked Quark, as casually as he could manage. “Ready to go see my mother?”

“Never,” replied Odo, but smiled fondly nonetheless. Quark smiled back in relief: he had been expecting Odo to avoid him after all that had transpired.

As they ambled down the hallway in companionable silence, he began to entertain a novel concept. Odo saw value in him, and he trusted Odo’s judgment on most matters. Perhaps Odo could not impart value to him against his will…but Odo could be his incentive to see value in himself and to work on his own behalf for a change.

***

The villa to which Ishka and Zek had chosen to retire surprised Quark with its sobriety. Built into a rock face opposite Speculation Falls, it merged fairly well with the landscape, in defiance of the extravagance that one would have expected. Its clean, minimalist lines gave way to organically shaped lintels. The overhang itself, in a bold repudiation of Ferengi architecture, consisted of a flat plain with scuppers to direct rainwater along simple geometric paths. Only the front door resembled anything traditional: the architect had elected to keep it round in shape and inlaid to within an inch of its life.

It occurred to Quark that the umbrella Rom was holding looked awfully familiar. “Is that…?” he ventured.

“Yep!” confirmed Rom as he opened it up, pinwheeled it a couple of times to shake the rain out, and held it over Leeta. She glanced apologetically at her brother-in-law and shrugged.

“My own flesh and blood. I don’t believe this.” Quark palmed his forehead in utter anguish.

“The Nagal Staff wasn’t as practical as an umbrella, sooooooo I made an umbrella out of it!”

Through mortified fingers, Quark glared daggers at the nearest suspect, which happened to be the door-knocker. Brushed titanium, and not a hint of ornamentation. Granted, it would hold up well underneath the usual barrage of rain, but he would give away his father’s remains if it were not the single ugliest thing he had seen on this trip. Gripping it in disgust, he knocked three times, then took his place alongside Odo.

After a brief hesitation from within, the door swung open to admit them.

“Quark, my boy!” came a wheedling exclamation, then –

“Rom! My favorite son! Come in, come in, all of you!”

The four of them took in an opulent foyer. An abundance of alcoves around its edges bore tastefully backlit objets d’art. The architect had elected to keep the texture of the rock walls somewhat raw, and had carved an enormous glass skylight at the very top. Each floor bore a large glass plate in its center for the light to filter through, and on the ground floor, directly beneath them, they beheld a sprawling garden. Within it, Odo recognized several rare plants from across the quadrant (he knew; he had practiced shapeshifting into them at one time or another). Across from them lay a music room of sorts, complete with Vulcan lyre and harpsichord.

“You have a beautiful home,” commented Odo. It seemed to him like the understatement of the decade.

“What’s that?” Zek wheezed, cupping a hand to his ear in a gesture that Odo had observed in other humanoids, but never in Ferengi. “Oh, yes, it’s not bad at that!”

Ishka, resplendent in an ensemble of embossed velvet, bustled closer to Zek and threaded her arm through his. “Zekkie’s had some hearing loss recently so you four will have to remember to speak up a bit,” she explained. “He misplaced his ear trumpet the other day and it’s been chaos ever since.”

“I could see how one might misplace something like that in here,” Leeta observed diplomatically.

“Why not just buy him a new one?” asked Quark, ever the pragmatist. “Any reputable sex shop should carry them.”

His mother narrowed her eyes in pique. “Oh, Quark. Do behave yourself.” The sidelong glance she gave Zek at this, however, answered any nagging suspicions Quark may have been suppressing. He shuddered.

The elderly couple showed their four guests into the dining room, which connected seamlessly to the foyer through a hidden hallway. Oil lamps in stained-glass sconces lit their path. It was all quite evocative. Leeta took her husband’s hand and beamed.

“There’s slug steak and eggs for everyone,” offered Ishka, indicating the sumptuous brunch that awaited them within, “and I did some veklava for you, Leeta, and there’s spice tea and raktajino to drink - please help yourselves to whatever strikes your fancy. I wasn’t sure about your friend Odo, Quark -”

“That’s very kind of you, Ishka, but I don’t eat.”

She peered up at him narrowly. “Hm. Seems to me that you did for a little while there; I can never keep up.” The six of them took their seats at the round mahogany table, Leeta between Rom and Zek, Quark between Ishka and Odo.

“This all looks wonderful!” said Leeta. “Before starting our meal, though, Ishka, Zek…Rom and I have something we’d like to share with you.”

Zek patted her hand. “By all means, my dear!” he shrilled. Leeta shot a significant glance at Rom, who quickly gathered its meaning. He stood up and gestured proudly toward his wife.

“We’re going to have a baaaabyyyyy!!”

Pulling back his hand, the retired Grand Nagus eyed the current one with alarm. “What, _now?_ ”

“Oh, Zekkie, honestly,” chided Ishka. “Rom, Leeta, that’s wonderful! This calls for the 2368 Kandora champagne. Would you fetch it from the cellar, lobekins? I can never find it in there.” As Zek made to get up from the table, Leeta hastily gestured that he should remain where he was. He returned suspiciously to his seat.

“That’s not all,” Leeta added excitedly. “Quark?”

Two rheumy pairs of eyes zeroed in on Quark, their owners no doubt wondering what he could possibly have to say that would match Rom and Leeta’s news. Quark had a succinct response prepared for this eventuality.

“Um.”

He fixed Odo with a pleading, panicked stare. Thankfully for him, Odo knew precisely what that meant – though if Odo were honest with himself, he felt just as anxious as Quark looked.

“Allow me,” rumbled Odo gently, turning past him to face Quark’s mother. “Ishka, your son and I are…” _what? In a stalemate? Reconciled? Grudging sidekicks? Somewhat fond of one another?_ He did not believe that any of those would go over too well.

“…courting,” he finished at long last. He contented himself with the conclusion that his forays into Bajoran romance literature had not been for naught. Just aft of his left shoulder, Quark let out a short puff of air.

Ishka regarded Odo neutrally for a long while, doubtless ascertaining his moral fiber and the veracity of his claim. Eventually, she collected her long velvet skirts in her hands and eased upward from the table. “Wait there a minute,” she commanded as she left the room. All five of the remaining occupants maintained a tense silence until she returned. When she did so, she bore a curiously flat ornamental box, which she gave Odo to open. With apprehension, he lifted the lid.

Within the box lay the most beautiful silk stole he had ever seen in his life. Its weave was exquisite and very smooth to the touch; it had been dyed a deep emerald green that caught the light in its shimmering folds. Furthermore, it bore a smattering of abstract embroidery the color of gold-pressed latinum. Odo was stunned: this was far too grand a gift; he could never think of accepting it.

“This belonged to my late husband, Keldar,” explained Ishka, “though he never actually wore it. It’s one of the stodgier traditions we Ferengi have – we pass the ‘mantle of providence’ to each new man in the family. As ridiculous as the custom is, I always admired the scarf’s craftsmanship. In fact, more than anything else, it was that scarf that inspired me to start wearing clothes. If men could have something so beautiful made just for ceremonial purposes, why couldn’t women have anything to wear at all? I hereby pass the mantle of providence on to you, Odo, in hopes that you will wear it whenever and wherever you damn well please.”

Rom erupted in spontaneous applause; soon Leeta followed, then a dazed Quark. Ishka held up an unequivocal hand indicating that she had not finished.

“When the time comes, Odo, I request that it be passed to Rom and Leeta’s son _or daughter_ , with the same injunction.” She settled back down and began tucking into her slug steak. Odo reluctantly closed the box’s lid and endeavored to return its contents.

“I can’t accept this, Ishka,” said Odo. “You only need keep it here for five more months before Leeta has her child.”

“Nonsense, Odo,” Ishka retorted, her mouth half full. “You’re courting my son, so you’re part of the family now.” She jabbed a fork in his direction. “ _You_ need to learn how to take a compliment, young man, and accepting that gift will go a long way toward teaching you.”

“Hear that?” grinned Quark, gathering the stole from its box and arranging it artfully around Odo’s shoulders. Reasoning that this would be the proper moment, Zek got up to fetch the champagne.

Once Quark sensed that the other couples had settled into their meals, content to chat amongst themselves, he stealthily motioned Odo toward him.

“Listen,” he whispered, barely loud enough for Odo to hear, “I don’t know why you took Leeta’s misunderstanding and ran with it, but thanks for covering for me.”

“I don’t see it as a misunderstanding.”

“You…you don’t?”

“No. Do you?”

“Well…no, of course not…but I was so sure you’d feel differently. After all, you had barely left your brick form before my brother and Leeta began making assumptions about us!”

“I’ll be sure to compliment them on their observational skills,” replied Odo, a playful half-smile forming on his lips.

Overwhelmed with relief and joy, Quark gripped Odo by the scarf, pulled him even closer, and met his nose in a tender nuzzle. Odo, for his part, was fast developing an idea of how to make use of said scarf in the near future.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: things are heating up, my dears. M rating for (non-graphic) sexytimes applies effective immediately.

The afternoon passed in a comfortably uneventful haze. Eleven different types of rain, by Quark’s count, alternated in their calm pattering while Zek showed them around the music room.

“So, you see, when a key is pressed, it strikes a wooden jack, which rises to meet what’s called a plectrum, which plucks the string! Fascinating, no?”

Of the five individuals crowded around the harpsichord, only Rom showed any interest whatsoever.

“Hew-mon culture has gone to shambles since the eighteenth century,” continued Zek loftily. “If they could invent something like this and write _The Wealth Of Nations_ , that already speaks to some sophistication on their part. Of course, these aren’t so easy to come by anymore; I had to buy this one from a fellow named Trelane. He was terribly rude!”

Leeta broke out into a sudden sneezing fit that might or might not have been intentional.

“Careful, my dear! Not on the instruments! Let’s get you a Tarkalean tea, that’s it,” he soothed as he ushered her out. Rom toggled the harpsichord’s lute stop experimentally one last time before hurrying after his wife. Ishka remained behind with Quark and Odo, regarding them both with benevolence. Quark was so unaccustomed to seeing such an expression on his mother’s face, particularly directed at him, that an oft-used reflex of his made him wonder if something was wrong.

Sensing Quark’s apprehension, Ishka smiled sweetly. “It’s just nice to see all three of my boys so happy,” she offered by way of explanation. Her son eyed her in confusion for a moment before it dawned on him. He made to glance encouragingly at Odo, but he was too late: Odo and Ishka had already approached one another, arms outstretched, and indulged in a massive hug.

At length, the six took a light supper in the garden, Odo lovingly describing many of the plant species surrounding them. He exuded a muted passion that nonetheless rivaled Zek’s about his Earth musical contraption - no small feat, Quark recognized. The stole he still wore around his shoulders coruscated with each small movement and brought out his eyes in a way that, in Quark’s view, had to be illegal in a few star systems. In his fascination, Quark had completely forgotten about his tube grubs, which were slithering resolutely out of his bowl, off the table and into soft peat.

Leeta’s sneezing fit had proven to be genuine, as well as quite severe. Ishka and Zek reasoned that it would be difficult, not to mention potentially dangerous, for her to transport back in her condition, so they extended their invitation until such time as it subsided. Both couples were shown into tastefully opulent guest rooms that connected to the garden via footpaths and round mahogany doors. Despite the early hour, Rom and Leeta retired to their quarters at once. Odo expressed a desire to spend more time in the garden; although Quark distrusted nature, he had to admit that it was all right with Odo wrapped up in it, so he agreed to accompany him.

Upon braving the garden again, he could almost see the attraction. The rain had switched to one of its least objectionable types: a regular, distinct drizzle that evoked the tinkling of small bells against the skylight. Oil lamps in multi-colored sconces lit their path from atop slim poles: the absence of further illumination lent the scene a dreamlike air. Plant fronds lurked in the gloom, no doubt waiting to grab Quark and make short work of him; he decided to focus instead on Odo, who was grinning his head off about something or other.

Without warning, Odo bounded a few steps ahead of Quark and became a Bajoran spiny basil. Quark did not approve.

“There’s already enough nature around here, Odo,” he admonished.

“Really? I recall _someone_ saying I was no fun whatsoever,” teased plant-Odo.

“If this is what you consider fun, then I stand by that statement. Proudly.” Quark gave the encroaching nature another distrustful glare.

As much as it was possible for a plant to give a Ferengi a supercilious smirk, Odo did so. “A week ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of shapeshifting in front of you without a good reason. Now I intend to derive fun from it, thank you very much.”

“You’re shedding,” Quark observed, lifting the scarf off plant-Odo’s branches and shaking leaves out of it.

“How careless of me,” remarked Odo coyly, shifting back to his usual form to reclaim it. At least, it resembled his usual form at the most cursory of glances, but –

“Odo.”

“Yes, Quark?”

“You’re…um…how should I put this…still shedding.”

Odo was busy wrapping the stole around his neck, but this time he had neglected to shift himself a shirt. Quark had never seen him in even this trivial a state of undress. He had wiry, lissome arms, an elegant parenthesis of a collarbone, and a chest that, while betraying his maturity, sacrificed nothing in the realm of aesthetics.

“Oh, dear,” Odo rumbled, his voice gritty and suggestive. “Whatever shall we do about this? My mind is elsewhere tonight, it seems.”

Quark felt as if his mind were suddenly made up of overloaded isolinear circuits. He knew too well that there were precious few ways of interpreting that statement, and fewer still when taking into account that delicious gravelly overtone and sudden shirtlessness. Was it just him or was the rain getting louder?

“You’d better, um…” – Quark cleared his throat; he could not believe it was finally coming to this – “...you'd better follow me inside. Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“That would be for the best.”

With infinite gentleness, as if afraid Odo would break, Quark grasped both ends of the mantle and, walking backwards along the footpath, led Odo after him. It was nothing like that one scene from ‘Vulcan Love Slave’: cheap thrills had no place here. Quark reflected on all the time he had been convinced that a pleasant voice, attractive face, shapely body, and utter contempt for him as a sentient being were the only things that could turn him on. All that time…when a shapeshifter who didn’t do faces very well – draped in a stole Quark’s _mother_ had given him, limned by oil lamps as raindrops tolled _–_ could galvanize his very soul, set it ablaze, and scatter the ashes to far places with strange names.

They approached the threshold of their guest room. Quark let go of the mantle, waiting for him to enter of his own volition, needing to receive that last confirmation of intent. Odo responded by crowding him against the door and placing a hand to either side of him, staring deeply and levelly into his questioning eyes. An age passed, marked only with rain and the flickering of pinprick lights.

Then Odo grinned, shot out a lengthening arm, and rotated the doorknob.

The door swung inward with appalling speed. Quark, who had been leaning on the door more than was strictly necessary, toppled flat onto his back. He only neglected to hit his head due to Odo’s prescience in catching him behind the neck with a spontaneous appendage. Odo busied another in closing the door behind them as he collapsed artlessly on top of Quark. They wasted no time in becoming a tangled heap on the carpet, Quark relieving Odo of his scarf to allow for more contact. At this, Odo cupped Quark’s chin assertively and kissed him as he never had, with a dying man’s urgency, leaving Quark in no doubt that Odo had been anticipating this as much as, maybe even more than, he had. Quark responded in kind, giving as much as he got, roughening the kiss as he threaded insistent fingers through Odo’s hair. Odo emitted a muffled moan and decided to get even, angling his hips a certain way against Quark’s and pressing firmly into the carpet. Quark soon found that he had lost all control of his hands. All he could process was that Odo’s skin was smooth, delectably hot to the touch, and rather more pliant than he remembered. Wanting as much of it as possible, he disengaged from the kiss and turned his attention to Odo’s collarbone, eliciting a brazen growl from the back of Odo’s throat. Of course, Quark could not allow this to stand: Odo’s neck had just volunteered to be next on his list. Otherwise incapacitated by pleasure, Odo managed to catch a darting hand with one of his own, interlacing their fingers and squeezing reflexively. To Quark’s surprise, by grasping Odo’s hand with equal pressure he was able to permeate the temporary membrane that allowed Odo to maintain a semblance of solidity. Similar incidents had occurred before, always at Odo’s behest and always with the intent of unsettling Quark. This was different, though…this was sublime: this felt like home. He realized that Odo was forming a Link at their palms; whether by primal instinct or conscious design, he could not say.

“Odo…” he breathed.

“Let me Link with you, Quark…” implored Odo huskily. “I’ve wanted this for so long…so many years…indulge an old shapeshifter, please...”

Their eyes met, blue on blue in a feedback loop of desire.

“You can count on it,” replied Quark at last, meeting Odo’s forehead with his own to seal their deal. He felt an intoxicating warmth envelop his arm, then his chest, then -

He _knew_. He saw the manifolds in the Great Link, stacked to aleph-three in reckoning-height, mostly taken up with recollections of a solid in garish attire. He saw Odo’s thought process about him in Denevan-crystal clarity: being, as he was, the one person on the station that Odo could never predict with great accuracy, Odo had developed a fascination with him. The constable’s supplemental researches into the criminal mind in the form of Bajoran erotica had not helped said obsession. It also went without saying that, on a certain level, Odo craved predictable affection from someone who otherwise rivaled Dr. Mora in the unpredictability department. The innumerable small defeats, the inexplicable reactions Odo experienced to his presence as a solid, the insecurity masquerading as dismissiveness, the perfectionism paralyzing him, the contrition over Kira and Rom and the female changeling, it was _everything._ Quark knew everything. Odo was everything.

He fluttered his eyes open to meet Odo’s and they shared a look of pure understanding. Then Odo deepened the Link as far as it would go, tilted them out of the pan and into the cleansing fire, and the detritus of the past swept away from them like so many rustling ash remnants. All had become bliss, destroyer of doubts. Quark basked in a euphoria that both included and transcended physicality.

Just when he did not think he could take any more, he was dimly aware of Odo’s visage hovering a few centimeters from his own…and the expression he wore looked worryingly crafty. If Odo so much as thought about touching his lobes it would all be over – and he had never wanted something to continue so much in his life.

“Odo, please, not yet…I want to do something for you; Blessed Exchequer knows I’m sated for the next –“

“But you have, Quark. You are. I thought you knew that Linking is how changelings experience intimacy. It’s rather more abstract a process than solid relations, I’m afraid. Oh, but it’s _wonderful_ ,” Odo assured him with a lidded gaze that Quark had to admit was fairly convincing.

“Yeah, I can see why you stayed with your extended goo family for as long as you did,” Quark reasoned, knowing full well that Odo would disapprove of his repeated usage of the phrase.

“There are two distinct levels of Linking, of course,” continued Odo gruffly, ignoring Quark. “The Great Link exists in a constant state of the first, more superficial level. It would have to – can you imagine an entire people living perpetually in pure intimacy with itself? The second and deeper level is reserved for occasions such as this one.”

“So, in a manner of speaking, we got to second base?” Quark quipped, remembering a fragment of terminology from Captain Sisko’s baseball match.

“Indeed we did,” replied Odo, hearkening back himself and deeming the analogy to be effective. “I regret that a solid’s experience of it is a great deal less than a changeling’s would be.”

“You’re all damn lucky then. I can’t imagine anything nicer than this.”

“In the interest of full disclosure, I should inform you of a certain advantage of Linking. It is not subject to the tension-resolution issues and refractory periods plaguing most sexual practices. As long as a Link remains active, it is constant, unchanging, without hills or valleys. So, hypothetically, if I were to do this –“

Odo casually snaked his free hand up Quark’s neck and began to stroke the outer helix of his left ear. Noting the sudden hitch in Quark’s breath, he continued apace, applying gentle pressure and subtly caressing the earlobe with his thumb. Between ragged breaths, Quark began keening pitifully. Odo upped the tempo of his treatment a bit; by that time, Quark was squirming every which way beneath him, whimpering in incoherence. Odo had only to bend nearer the ear and let out a knowing, throaty chuckle to send Quark over the edge.

Quark had considered himself somewhat of a connoisseur of these matters. He made holo-program recommendations to bashful couples from across the quadrant on a daily basis. He read all sorts of questionable literature in his free time, and sometimes on his shift as well. He had had lovers of several species and genders. That being said, never in his life had he come like that, nor would he have thought such rapture possible for any sentient individual. Wave after wave, crests like tachyon pulses, fulminating, clutching on for dear life, scintillating like the tail of Odo’s comet, careening into uncharted space after him. Before he knew it, he was a sobbing mess, cradling his anguished face in one hand, shakily maintaining their Link with the other.

“…hypothetically, of course, then you would still feel the Link’s effects afterward,” continued Odo, as if nothing of consequence had happened. He squeezed their Linked hands affectionately.

 “You bastard,” mumbled Quark, once he remembered that he had vocal cords.

This was rather far from the reaction Odo had anticipated. “I _beg_ your pardon?” he exclaimed, climbing off Quark in affront.

“You do something that…indescribably amazing..for me, and I…I can’t even return the favor?!” Quark ranted between sniffles.

“But you _are_ returning it!” Odo held up their Linked hands as evidence.

“Not like _that!_ ” Quark dried his eyes on a damask sleeve, habit directing him to send an avalanche of bonding hormones to the back of his mind. “Hear me out: I have an idea. I’m a solid but I can derive benefits from Linking. That, um, goes without saying. You’re a changeling but you still enjoy being touched in your humanoid form. Why can’t it work both ways? Have you ever tried?”

“It never occurred to me to try, really. Both Linking and solid relations expose...vulnerabilities...I would sooner forget I had. The prospect of combining them would not have appealed to me before.”

“…but it appeals to you now?” Quark inferred with a hopeful grin, straightening up.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” chided Odo dryly, though the warmth from their Link encouraged Quark not to take the turn of phrase seriously. “Not two minutes ago you were a weeping heap. I think I can afford a little vulnerability after witnessing that spectacle.”

“Dealing in dirt, are we? Always the constable.”

“On that subject, if I catch you doing anything illicit during your ministrations, I’ll have you arrested.”

“Then I’ll just have to make sure you’re too drunk with pleasure to notice,” Quark purred.

Odo’s eyes gleamed with reflected mischief. “Hmph. I’d like to see you try,” he remarked, in a poor imitation of indifference.

“Challenge accepted,” replied Quark as he lowered him slowly to the floor.

Quark relished the agency that Odo seemed prepared to give him. He had never been a stranger to providing gratification, either directly or indirectly, through the shadier services he had offered throughout his career. Yet having a lover at his mercy, willingly, casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to relinquish control and let oneself be pleasured at the discretion of another…he felt both uniquely privileged and utterly out of his depth. Pressing their Linked palms together fondly, he began some desultory exploration with his free hand. He was in no hurry to finagle an outcome out of this; rushing this would be tantamount to downing a bottle of Saurian brandy in one go. Even if he wanted to, he could not foresee being able to take his eyes off of Odo’s: the blithe, open manner in which Odo gazed up at him would better have befitted a trusting lobeling than a worldly former security officer. The responsibility humbled Quark in the extreme.

Odo enjoyed being touched just about everywhere. Perhaps his mutable nature discouraged the development of precise erogenous zones – or, if indeed he possessed any, the delta between them and the rest of his form proved quite narrow. Odo’s skin, already feverish before their Link, had risen in temperature by several degrees and now verged on the prohibitively warm. Its malleability had also increased, resulting in the occasional eddy forming at Quark’s touch. His solar plexus had become a miniature teardrop pool that looked so inviting that Quark simply had to map it with his thumb. A low rumble emerged from Odo’s throat as his eyes lost some of their crystalline focus. Quark grinned, satisfied that he was at last gaining the advantage. Delighting in the crescendo of Odo’s purr, he decided to attack it at the source by trailing reverent kisses up his jawline. After some lingering moments of this, Odo’s composure reached a new nadir. He became restive, parts of his anatomy sprouting random projections: a Fibonacci curve here, a pomegranate branch there, an elaborate wing behind his shoulder…all appearing and disappearing within seconds. His Bajoran uniform trousers had vanished; Quark was too awed at these other changes to notice until such time as his hand migrated to a hipbone. Sensing nothing but desire and reassurance from their Link, he proceeded at a gentle downward diagonal and found purchase. His gaze never left Odo’s as he coaxed him, inexorably and patiently, to a completion rivaling the one he had so recently experienced.

As he climaxed, Odo became a number of improbable things: a burning jumja tree, an omnidimensional tesseract with feathers, a particle field of warm amber light. Quark watched him in fond amusement, trying not to look too pleased with himself.

At length Odo shifted back to his usual form, peacefully overwhelmed, still unclothed, as tall a drink of water as Quark had ever beheld. At the risk of appearing too sentimental, Quark retrieved Odo’s scarf from underneath a side table, where it lay shimmering and forgotten, and draped it around him like a wreath of laurels. It was an image he would not soon forget.

Wordlessly, with a serene half-smile, Odo got up, took Quark’s free hand in his, and ushered them both toward the bed. They collapsed onto it and each other, utterly spent. Although it would have behooved him to return to his natural state, Odo could not help but maintain their Link until long after Quark had succumbed to peaceful sleep. While regenerating in a decorative bowl on their nightstand some hours later, he would reflect that _this_ , not his sojourn in the Great Link, must be the peace Lwaxana Troi once assured him he would find.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quark draping Odo in things is my entire aesthetic. I also like harpsichords and cannot lie.


	9. Chapter 9

After returning to the Nagal residence the following morning, Quark and Odo realized that they had established a precedent that would become a routine. Each day they remained on Ferenginar, they would help out as best they could around the estate, share meals with Leeta and Rom, then return to their quarters at night and exhaust each other. On rare occasions they would even make it to the bed first. Odo found Rom camped outside their door one memorable morning, very pleased that Odo was no longer holding out on his brother.

It was all perfectly delightful, Odo reflected, but the imposition on Quark’s brother and sister-in-law began to weigh heavily on him, despite their reassurances of welcome for as long as they cared to stay. He wondered what exactly Quark was trying to avoid on Deep Space Nine. As much as he wished not to confront Quark on the matter, there came a day when the subject required immediate broaching. That day was the one in which he and Quark were pulling weeds in the courtyard, and he realized that Quark was in fact putting them right back into their furrows.

Just then, Leeta emerged from indoors. She was holding a padd and wearing an anxious expression.

“Leeta, you could catch cold in this weather,” Odo cautioned her kindly as he jogged up to meet her.

“You’re saying I shouldn’t go outside for another four and a half months? I know you mean well, Odo, but this is just a light glebbening rain. Practically Risan around here.”

“Still, I insist,” Odo said as he shifted one of his arms into an umbrella and held it out for her. She gave him a grudging smile in return.

They strolled toward Quark, avoiding muddy patches as best they could. Either Leeta did not recognize what her brother-in-law was doing with the weeds or it did not matter in light of whatever was worrying her. Odo strongly suspected the latter to be the case.

“Quark, you need to see this.” She thrust the padd into his grubby fingers with no further explanation. He brushed soil off of it immediately, exchanged questioning looks with both Leeta and Odo, and began reading. It was a news clipping from one of Deep Space Nine’s local outlets.

_PROMENADE FIXTURE RANSACKED AGAIN: New Owner Turned Hero After Daring Standoff_

_In a repeat performance of an incident that occurred last month, Boslic vandals have again targeted Quark’s Bar, damaging seating, countertops, replicators, and the spiral staircase._

_“Our intelligence predicted nothing of the sort. The earlier attack seemed to be a one-off, and we fully expected the problem to stop after Quark left,” Acting Constable Gyorgy McClellan explains._

_Rionoj, the leader of several Boslic organized crime rings, had a falling out with the establishment’s previous owner, Quark, a Ferengi businessman who founded the bar in 2361. Now that Quark’s Bar has changed hands under mysterious circumstances, however, the motive for the attack is unclear at this time._

_The bar’s current proprietor, Morn, a well-known figure on Deep Space Nine, faced off with the vandals in a bold move. “By keeping them talking, Morn was able to buy enough time for us to get there and arrest those responsible,” McClellan said in a statement._

_Rionoj was not present at the crime scene and remains at large._

“Damn it!” exclaimed a distressed Quark. “I paid her off! This wasn’t supposed to happen again!”

“I love how the reporter doesn’t even try to speculate about where you’ve gone,” remarked Leeta indignantly.

“To be fair, my note to Morn _was_ fairly enigmatic.”

Odo shot out an impatient appendage and snatched the padd from Quark’s grasp, perusing it himself in escalating outrage. “You mean to say that your bar was attacked before? And what’s this about an ‘acting constable’? Ridiculous!”

“McClellan’s useless,” opined Quark. “Total paper-pusher. Completely saw the first attack coming; didn’t much care when it did. Just told me to write up a damage estimate. Of course, he has access to your files so he’s aware of Rionoj’s last known location –“

“Did you say Rionoj?” Leeta inquired with interest. “She’s notorious even here on Ferenginar. I wasn’t aware that anyone knew where she was located. Well done, Odo.”

“She’ll have moved her base since then, of course. Anyway, it was Quark here who…sold me the information,” Odo revealed gruffly.

“For the price of a little public humiliation in the form of a dance,” elucidated Quark. Leeta shot each of them a delighted glance. “You _didn’t,_ ” she enthused.

On principle, Odo decided to ignore Quark’s diversionary tactic. “You know what this means, right, Quark? It means you don’t get to avoid this any longer. We’re returning the runabout to Deep Space Nine and having a little chat with McClellan. Why didn’t you say anything about your bar before?”

“Well, at first, I figured you’d want to go gallivanting back to the station…and Colonel Kira,” Quark confessed, tracing wobbly geometric shapes in the soil with a fingernail. He did not meet Odo’s eyes. “I just wanted some time with you. Alone. So that you could, you know, make an educated decision about me one way or another. Later, once it became clear that you’d made that decision, there were suddenly so many more intriguing topics of conversation. You can’t exactly blame me for not bringing it up, now, can you?” The picture of contrived innocence, he blinked up at Odo with pressed-together wrists and dirty knuckles.

“After that, there weren’t very many topics of conversation at all,” observed Odo neutrally. By his right shoulder, Leeta snickered.

“Lucky for you that I don’t want you for your conversation,” Quark rejoined, folding his arms victoriously and dropping the affectation.

“Ahem,” said Leeta tersely. Both Odo and Quark turned at once to face her; in the thick of their bickering, they had nearly forgotten that she was there. It occurred to Odo that he and Quark would have to leave soon. This was what he had wanted…was it not?

“Thank you, Leeta, for everything…” he began, while enveloping her in a gentle hug, “…and congratulations. Do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of further assistance to you or Rom.”

Leeta hugged him back affectionately. “Speaking of Rom, he’ll want to see you off. It’s been fun, you two. Come back to visit anytime.”

***

Back on the station, Kira Nerys had quite enough to be getting on with. The replicators were on the fritz, O’Brien was unreachable while house-hunting with Keiko in Minsk, and half the senior staff was up in arms because nobody could get a hot enough raktajino – never mind that there were at least nineteen other matters requiring her attention. The last thing she needed to do was go to ops. Still, something instinctual insisted that she would do well to cart herself and her cold coffee over to the viewscreen. As she did so, she took in a nondescript runabout (was it even one of the station’s?) idling suspiciously a few thousand kilometers away. Sighing, she opened a channel.

“This is Colonel Kira Nerys of Deep Space Nine hailing unknown vessel. Identify yourself and state your purpose in this sector,” she rattled off automatically, in between sips of “extra hot” raktajino.

Odo could not deny that he was already enjoying this. He accepted the transmission and activated his viewscreen. “Hello, Nerys,” he rumbled.

Kira’s raktajino promptly found its way all over the communications console. “ _Odo?!?_ Prophets, is it really you?” She slapped her combadge as if it had offended her. “Kira to Dax: report to ops immediately – you’ve got to see this!” Soon enough, there was a hiss of hydraulics and Lieutenant Dax emerged from the turbolift. She positively boggled upon seeing Odo. “What brings you back to the station, Odo?” asked Kira, clearly overjoyed. Ezri eyed her anxiously.

“The extradition of a petty criminal who is nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is,” Odo explained, glancing fondly over his shoulder at something or someone beyond the viewscreen’s borders.

Nerys’s generous smile faltered. “Quark. Security’s been looking all over for him. The note Morn turned in didn’t explain where he’d gone. What happened? What’s he done?”

“Crashed this vessel on my homeworld with malice aforethought,” grinned Odo.

“Wow. Okay then.” It was eminently clear that, whatever the colonel may have signed up for in her lifetime, this was not it. “Do you require assistance?”

“Not at this time – our repairs have taken us this far; they should get us to the docking ring in one piece.” Odo gave her a thankful nod in acknowledgment of the offer.

“We’ll be keeping an eye on you in any case. Docking port nine is available; bring her on in. Welcome back, Odo,” beamed Kira.

Odo beamed in return. “Thank you, Nerys. It’s good to be back.”

“Hey, what am I, softened tube grubs?!” snapped Quark, sticking his head into view sideways. So what if his ear landed in Odo’s lap? If he played his cards right, Colonel Kira might accurately interpret the gesture as one of possessiveness.

“Welcome back, Quark,” obliged the colonel, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “I’m so glad you made it back to the station safely after your unsanctioned joyride.”

Ezri chimed in before Kira could end the transmission. “Quark! Odo! I want details!” she demanded, waving frantically at both of them before the comm link went dark.

“You heard Ezri,” remarked Quark as Odo maneuvered the thrusters. His head was still in Odo’s lap and he was not planning on moving it anytime soon.

“Hmph. I imagine you would still recall sufficient details to impart to Lieutenant Dax after a month or two in a holding cell.”

“Oh come on. Surely there were extenuating circumstances.”

“Not in my book.”

“To the Vault with your book,” grumbled Quark, not for the first time. An idea occurred to him: brightening, he turned to face Odo, head still very much in his lap. “Might I propose an equitable trade?”

“You mean a bribe? Certainly not.” Odo fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat.

“I do not mean a bribe, and frankly I resent the implication,” countered Quark. “It’s very straightforward. Either you let me off, or Ezri’ll get _quite_ the earful. How would you like it if I were to tell her every last detail of our visit to Ferenginar? Hmm?”

“I’d like it just fine,” Odo replied insolently, glancing down at Quark and chuckling.

“Sure you would,” replied Quark in defeat. He hunkered down further on Odo’s lap, considering his options. It was not long before he brightened again, rather dimmer than he had before. “How about this? If you throw me in a cell I’ll stop getting up close and personal with you after my so-called trumped-up ‘sentence’.”

“ _You_? Cut _me_ off? You wouldn’t last a day.” As if to remind Quark why not, he sprouted another hand to caress the back of his head, then his ear. Quark stifled a moan and squirmed in token protest.

“I could create a holo-program of you,” he pointed out. This got Odo’s attention. “You wouldn’t dare,” he growled softly, leaning in so close that his nose almost touched the ear in question. “Could a holo-program do this?” He formed himself a tongue and began running it deftly along the edge of the outer helix, holding Quark steady all the while with his third arm.

“You’re…not doing yourself any favors, Odo…” Quark insisted as angry welling arousal threatened to distract him completely. He could still gain the upper hand, but he would have to fight just as dirty as Odo.

“You do…realize that…I _could_ in fact program it to do that…and who knows…the material you’ve given me these past two weeks…might not all fit onto one holo-image.” Odo stopped in sudden consternation, third arm contracting inward. His erstwhile victim took the opportunity to scramble up onto his lap and straddle him. “I could create multiples, though,” continued Quark, leaning in close and interlacing his hands around Odo’s neck. “I might just have to fill my holosuites with holo-Odos,” he murmured to his increasingly alarmed audience. His nose brushed against Odo’s as he lowered his voice to a whisper. “And all the while you’d have to sit in your quarters with your weird sculptures…and suffer _._ ” With an impish grin, Quark released his hands, leaned back and allowed the information to percolate. The shapeshifter rolled his eyes theatrically, despite being visibly shaken. It was only then that he realized that the runabout was slouching a few hundred kilometers off course.

“Computer – engage auto-pilot on pre-set course. Employ thrusters as needed.”

“Looks like _someone_ didn’t complete flight school,” replied the computer as it followed Odo’s commands.

Quark gave him a nonplussed look. He had still not left Odo’s lap.

Odo got the picture: obviously, he was not going to win this one. “I _suppose_ I could put you under house arrest instead,” he admitted grudgingly, pulling Quark back toward him in a grudging embrace. “You’d have to be closely supervised, of course,” he suggested, with innuendo as thinly veiled as he could muster.

“How closely?” inquired Quark, though he liked to think he knew the answer.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Odo mused, threading his hands underneath Quark’s jacket. Quark foisted a hard, unyielding kiss on him in retaliation. Without breaking the kiss, Odo let out a frustrated grunt, scooped Quark up from his lap, and situated them both on the floor in an unruly sprawl. As they scuffled amorously, the runabout eased into the docking port; neither of them took much interest in this development.

The cockpit door soon hissed open. Observing them in dawning comprehension and amusement was Lieutenant Dax.


	10. Chapter 10

Dax stepped back from the doorway, keeping a respectable distance from the runabout – or what would have been considered a respectable distance under normal circumstances. Neither Quark nor Odo quite agreed that these were normal circumstances, however.

“Hello, Ezri. Incidentally, that wasn’t what it looked like,” assured Quark as he piled out of the craft, jacket askew and eyes glazed over. When Odo followed suit, looking just as debauched, Quark covertly pointed to him, made a series of obscene hand gestures, and shook his head.

“What are you talking about, Quark? That was exactly what it looked like,” Odo remarked brightly.

“What did it look like? You tell me,” quipped Ezri.

“Er…”

“Wow. You _really_ must think I was born yesterday. Just look at you both!” she enthused. “Finally! You’re so adorable together, you know that, right? It was only a matter of time. Don’t think Jadzia didn’t notice how you two were always mooning over each other.” Quark and Odo exchanged dark glances at this.

“And Curzon! Did _he_ have to have the last word after her _zhian’tara!”_ Somewhere behind Quark, Odo palmed his forehead. _“_ Talking about how all he did was give Odo that little confidence boost he’d always needed, and boom!” She mimed an explosion. “More homoeroticism than a Klingon war epic – in his words, I think, since I’m no expert in xenoliterature -”

“Ezri…”

“I know, I know. Don’t tell Colonel Kira.”

“It’s not that, it’s –"

“She’d be fine with it, you realize. I think she’s happier on her own. She certainly doesn’t have the time for anything resembling a personal life these days, what with keeping the station running and trying to fill your shoes, Odo –“

“I don’t –“

“I’m well aware you don’t wear shoes; it’s just a figure of speech. That scarf you’re wearing is _gorgeous_ , though! Is that a new shapeshifting exercise? Anyway, she barely has time to sit down for a meal, let alone keep up a relationship – and she seems to prefer it that way. I don’t blame her in the slightest, after what happened to Bareil and then getting so invested with Shakaar –“

“Ezri.” Odo strode forward and placed a gentle hand on each of her shoulders. Satisfied that she was prepared to listen to him for the time being, he continued. “I am very glad to see you again, but I need to speak with Nerys regarding a matter that has nothing to do with what you just witnessed. I’m afraid it’s quite urgent. Do you think we could continue this conversation at a later time?”

Ezri could not help herself: she threw her arms tightly around Odo and squeezed. “Of course, Odo. Come by my office, okay? I have appointments until 1800 hours on weekdays but after that I’m free.”

“Will do,” assured Odo as Ezri let go.

“Congratulations on seeing the light, both of you,” she added, winking, before striding off down the corridor and out of sight. Quark and Odo headed in the opposite direction, toward the turbolift.

“Hmph,” Odo opined. That dreaded subharmonic wafted mercilessly over Quark, who was still consumed with frustration from their earlier activities.

“I love it when you do that,” he found himself admitting.

“Do what?” asked Odo blankly. He was unaware that he had been doing anything special.

“That annoyed little noise you make. The first time you did it at the bar I almost had to get someone to cover my shift, if you know what I mean.” Grinning, he nudged Odo with a pointy elbow.

“Is that why you were a constant thorn in my side? Just so you could gorge yourself on one of your innumerable sexual perversions?” This last Odo enunciated impeccably and indignantly for the entire corridor to hear. Quark found it difficult to care.

“Why, whatever would you know about those?” he lilted, mustering all the faux innocence at his disposal. Odo gave him a withering look but did not otherwise respond.

The turbolift arrived and they filed in – it was blessedly empty. No sooner had the doors hissed shut behind them than Odo proceeded to crowd Quark near the back of the tiny enclosure.

“Did it ever occur to you to ask _nicely_ , rather than relying on some underhanded scheme?” he inquired, his gritty voice reverberating deliciously off the sheet metal surrounding them.

“Can’t say it did,” replied Quark in between shallow breaths. Taking the hint, Odo sidled even closer as he shook his head in mock bemusement.

“I may never understand the criminal mind.”

“I’m not above asking nicely now,” Quark pointed out.

“I’m not above considering your request,” rejoined Odo, deliberately throwing in a low chortle.

Quark was such a stranger to dignity at this point that he did not think twice. “Odo, please –“

 _“Hmmmmmph,”_ rumbled his tormentor directly into his ear. The ensuing echo had not yet made a complete circuit of the turbolift before Quark crumpled to the floor in a dead faint. Sighing stoically, Odo gathered him up bridal-style as they neared their destination.

Those who recognized Odo looked on in astonishment as he strode across ops, Quark in tow; those who did not met his approach with veiled consternation. He ignored each of them in turn as he swept into the office that had so recently been Sisko’s, situating Quark in a stray armchair by the door before turning to face Kira.

The colonel, who was immersed in reading something on a padd, quickly placed it on her desk for later. “Odo, I’m so sorry I couldn’t meet you by the landing dock; something came up so Ezri volunteered, I really wanted to –“

“It’s all right, Nerys, I understand,” responded Odo, smiling fondly as he regarded his friend and erstwhile lover. She wore an impeccably tailored Starfleet uniform, but had elected to switch back to using a Bajoran combadge. Her hair had been cropped back to her preferred length: military-style, eminently practical and no-nonsense. There were a few furrows between her eyebrows that had been absent a year ago, but these gave her an air of seriousness and refinement rather than severity. “You’re looking well: command suits you,” he observed.

“Thank you, Odo. You’re a gentleman as always. What brings you back, other than the extradition of – oh.” Her gaze centered on Quark’s slumped form.

“He’ll be all right; he just fainted in the turbolift,” Odo assured Kira.

“Quark. Fainted. In the turbolift.”

“It would appear so.”

Kira crossed her arms, stared at the floor and shook her head in bemusement. “Makes perfect sense,” she muttered. “So, what can I do for you?” she asked Odo, straightening to attention.

“I want to know why you have elected to hire a constable on a purely provisional basis.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“On the news reports.”

“Well, I haven’t found one who meets my standards yet, so I’ve assigned Ensign McClellan to an interim post as part of his Starfleet training,” explained the colonel. “Since he isn’t a full-fledged security officer, I’ve been absorbing some of your old duties…though reading criminal activity reports isn’t quite as entertaining with McClellan,” she confessed with a nostalgic grin.

“What happened at Quark’s bar last month?” pressed Odo, urgently but not unkindly.

“We don’t know much more than what the news reported. That Boslic captain Rionoj was involved, of course, but she conducted both raids from afar. Once Quark left the station, McClellan and I assumed that the bar would no longer be a target to them. After the first raid, she made a big deal about wanting him to pay, personally, for revealing her last known location.”

“And you contented yourselves with accepting that Quark was gone? Possibly for good?”

“Odo, try to understand, okay?” beseeched Kira. “He left Morn a cryptic note. He pulled all the isolinear rods out of the craft he stole. No combadge, of course. There was no way we could track him; all we knew was that both he and a runabout were missing. We had to accept it. You know better than I do that some cases never come to a neat and tidy close.”

“I’m…sorry, Nerys,” admitted Odo in embarrassment.

“It’s fine, Odo. I get the picture,” she replied kindly. “If Shakaar had ever disappeared mysteriously during the resistance, there would have been no end of protests from those he had charmed.”

Odo started. Had he been that transparent, or had Dax somehow already spoken with the colonel? “It’s not –“ _what? Not a camp follower’s rosy obsession, by any means, but it’s damn near everything else,_ he mused.

“Yes, it is,” Kira insisted. Her aspect turned bittersweet. “I’ve seen that look before – in the mirror, whenever Bareil was about to come to the station. I’d hoped you would find peace in the Great Link, but I knew, deep down, that it would never work. You left too much behind here. You must have known it, too, not to have said goodbye to him. You didn’t want to run the risk of ending whatever it was you two always had.”

“Nerys, believe me when I say that this does not discount what we shared before,” he assured her, hoping that the sentiment by itself would somehow make everything all right. To his surprise, she grasped him by the shoulders, overjoyed that he had shared an epiphany with her.

“Of course it doesn’t discount what we had! I just wasn’t the one for you. You weren’t the one for me either. That was Bareil, incidentally, and he’s long gone. Sometimes your emotions run so hot that you lose the ability to differentiate between what the Prophets have in store for you and what _you_ think is good for you. When you find that one person who was destined to join you on your path, those with your best interests at heart take notice. Sometimes earlier than you do yourself.” She released him gently, skirting his gaze. “And yes, I did notice. There was a time when I did not want to believe what I saw, but I noticed all the same.”

“Thank you, Nerys,” Odo murmured, taking her hand between both of his and squeezing warmly. Their eyes met, and it felt like the friendliest command transfer in history.

The colonel let out a brief sigh, bringing them out of the moment.“Now that _that’s_ out of the way, I think it’s high time we wake him up. Come on, Quark, get your latinum while it’s hot,” she snapped, shaking the Ferengi who was occupying valuable chair space in her office. Immediately upon coming to, Quark emitted a high-pitched screech of utter frustration.

“Blessed Exchequer, Odo, what’s a man got to do for satisfaction around these parts?!” he wailed.

“’Some among us are called to walk strange paths indeed,’” quoted Kira under her breath. Just then, her combadge trilled. “McClellan to Commander Kira,” said a young man’s voice. Desperate for any form of diversion, she slapped the badge in response. “Go ahead, Ensign,” she encouraged him.

“Sorry to bother you, sir, but two of Rionoj’s associates we imprisoned have just requested to speak to Quark. Is he in ops with you?”

“Yes. We’re on our way,” she replied, wordlessly indicating to both Odo and Quark that they should follow her.

The three of them took the turbolift to the security office, which Kira and McClellan had kept in very much the same condition as when Odo left, and proceeded from there to the brig. A short, sandy-haired man with a patchy beard, no doubt Acting Constable Gyorgy McClellan, waited for them by the largest of the holding cells. Inside were two rough-hewn Boslic men, who were staring down McClellan with obvious contempt.

“Sir,” explained McClellan, “we now have a motive for this most recent attack. These men offer this information freely as a good-faith gesture, but have something else they wish to communicate only to Quark. Hurik, Yfod, kindly tell the Colonel what you told me earlier.”

“She wanted to lure the Ferengi meddler back to the station,” said the taller of the two. “The transfer of ownership meant little to her; knowing the meddler as she does, she knew he would come running back as soon as he heard it was attacked again, regardless of who ‘owned’ it on paper.”

“She intends to meet with this Ferengi. Make sure he comes in a craft that cannot be traced, or there will be consequences,” threatened the other.

Quark folded his arms and gazed at them narrowly. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?” he sneered, reflecting that it was much easier to be intimidating with the two toughest beings on the station standing right behind you.

“Everyone else, clear out,” commanded the one who had more recently spoken. Obediently, Kira, Odo and McClellan left the brig, but not without exchanging significant glances. Quark eyed their retreating forms anxiously.

“You’ll need coordinates,” the Boslic continued, once he was alone with his compatriot and Quark. He shielded his mouth from the security camera with a calloused hand as he spelled them out. “Meet her there at noon tomorrow galactic standard. Don’t be late. She’s bringing a _very_ special guest from the Gamma Quadrant.”


	11. Chapter 11

“She’s plotting something beyond her usual level of deviousness. Frankly, I’m scared,” Quark declared.

The three emerged onto the promenade, darting through faceless crowds with disquietude. An Andorian’s luggage collided with Quark; the Andorian mumbled his hasty apologies without making eye contact.

“Nerys, is there any way we could keep an eye on Quark during the proceedings?” inquired Odo. “Perhaps a runabout with a constant transporter lock…something like that?”

Kira bowed her head and pursed her lips in concentration. Soon enough, she had formulated a plan. She straightened, pulled her uniform taut, and explained it to them in one fell swoop. “Take the _Rio Grande,_ remove its isolinear rods, and do something about its warp signature. I don’t want you taking the runabout Quark stole anywhere until one of our engineers can have a look at it. I’ll lend you combadges; you can hide yours, Quark, and keep Odo standing by.” She clapped Odo on the shoulder. “Let me know how it goes. I’d send McClellan along with you, but I can’t spare him and I know you’ll do everything in your power to keep Quark safe and, more importantly, aboveboard, Odo,” joked Kira, grinning at both of them. Odo snaked an arm around Quark’s shoulder and gazed at him affectionately.

“Is it that obvious?” he asked the colonel, not taking his eyes off Quark.

“Yes, it is,” she replied, in the manner of explaining to a very dull child that a hara cat does indeed have six legs. “By the way, Odo, if you plan on staying long you’re more than welcome to resume your old duties. McClellan could work as your deputy; he’d be glad for the expert guidance.”

“I appreciate the offer, Nerys. I might well take you up on it.”

At this, Quark balked visibly. “What, and go back to harassing an honest businessman every chance you get? For shame, Odo,” he tutted.

“I’ve never heard such nonsense,” exclaimed Odo. “Morn is a perfectly honest businessman and runs a completely legal bar. What need could I possibly have to harass such an upstanding citizen?” Gripping Quark’s shoulder more firmly, he steered him toward the docking ring. “ _You_ , on the other hand, are under house arrest effective immediately for stealing a station runabout…”

Kira watched them fondly as they left, then headed back to her office.

***

Seasoned as Quark was in the technique of removing isolinear rods and otherwise making crafts untraceable, the _Rio Grande_ soon met his standards for same. Pulling it out of docking port five, he and Odo took it on a small shakedown just outside of the station, making sure to keep it within visual range while Colonel Kira attempted to track it with the station’s sensors. They made a few more adjustments per her observations, then set a course toward the coordinates the two Boslics had specified (on auto-pilot, of course; they had unfinished business to attend to in the dormitory). At length, Rionoj’s freighter emerged from the corner of their view panel.

It was a dilapidated, squat vessel that better resembled a pile of salvage than anything remotely spaceworthy. Utterly motionless, it lurked across from them, its shields at maximum. With poorly concealed trepidation, Quark hailed it and requested to beam over. A Boslic pilot regarded him suspiciously, but must have decided that the Ferengi on his viewscreen adequately matched the description he had been given, since he proceeded to lower the ship’s shields. Once the transmission ended, Quark pulled Odo in for a desperate hug, reiterating that he was scared.

“I’ll keep a transporter lock on you the whole time,” Odo reminded him, removing Quark’s combadge from the front of his jacket and placing it in his palm. “Open a comm link with this once you beam over and I’ll keep it active, so I will know if anything illicit occurs…on her instigation or yours,” he added dryly.

“Fine, Odo. I’m sure you’ll be very proud of yourself when you apprehend my lifeless body on false charges,” Quark replied with bad grace, stepping onto the transporter pad and dematerializing. A few fraught seconds crawled by. Then -

“Quark to Odo,” whispered Quark through the comm link. “I’m in the cargo hold. So far so sketchy. I don’t seem to be in any immediate danger. Yet.”

“Keep me informed of your status. Standing by,” Odo muttered back. Quark concealed the combadge in a fold of his shirtsleeve like he used to do with fizz-bin cards as a lobeling. Peering at each crate as if expecting grizzled mercenaries to jump out behind any or all of them, he tiptoed his way to the cabin.

A familiar face with long violet hair greeted him. She was seated at the head of a long conference table, surrounded by bodyguards. Her severe, booted feet were propped on top of the table, and the chair immediately to her left was empty.

“So, we meet again, Quark. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“Rionoj,” Quark replied evenly. “I wish I could say it’s a pleasure, but I gave up lying through my teeth for Ha’mara.”

“I’d like you to meet someone,” she continued, her voice betraying no genuine emotion whatsoever.

“That’s awfully kind of you, but I have a significant other already.”

“Really? Won’t you tell me who it is? I could do with a laugh.”

“Not you. That’s all you need to know.”

“A pity - and after all I’ve done for you,” mocked Rionoj. “I dare say your significant other, whosoever it may be, would be very interested to meet my guest. But he’s listening in, isn’t he? So it’s almost as if he’s here with us.”

Quark had not been remotely prepared for this. How could they trace an encrypted Federation comm link? His consternation must have come across loud and clear, for Rionoj broke into an unpleasant smile at this.

“Oh, don’t be alarmed, Quark. This turns out better than I could devise. Nurjan, there’s been a slight change of plans. Why don’t you show our honored guest in now?”

The bodyguard seated furthest from Rionoj got up and strode through a door in the back of the cabin.

Moments later, he returned with a Vorta.

“I come bearing a message for you, Ferengi, and for the exalted Founder you serve,” said the Vorta, a Luaran, as she took her place to Rionoj’s left. “The Alpha Quadrant’s time is short. The Dominion has suffered but a temporary setback. His place is with us. The Founders’ representative has deigned to inform me that they are prepared to welcome him back into their illustrious ranks on one very small condition.” Her smile grew, if possible, even more unpleasant than the one Rionoj currently wore. “If he agrees to help his fellow Founders track down the one hundred who were scattered, his place within the Link will be assured into perpetuity.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Quark managed to inquire, despite trembling like a spiny basil leaf. “Why not bring Odo here instead?”

“You go where he goes. You serve him. You are afraid of being apart from him for long,” Luaran intoned, as if each pronouncement were the most self-evident truth in existence.

“Look what happened to your bar once he wasn’t watching over you anymore,” taunted Rionoj. “Are you scared of me, Quark? Are you scared of what I can do to you? Because you should be. Without Odo as your attack targ, you’re just a pathetic little slug by the wayside, just waiting for someone like me to come along and pour salt over you.”

“He would have no reason to refuse the Founders’ offer,” explained the Vorta, quite redundantly in Quark’s opinion. “The Founders are prepared to forego judgment; to treat him as an equal – nay, a superior. To welcome him back to the paradise that is the Great Link, and after all his transgressions against them!”

“Quark, you of all people shouldn’t be able to deny the appeal of being on the winning side,” said Rionoj. “You know that what Odo wants more than anything is to feel like he belongs somewhere. Well, Luaran is offering him a generous taste of both. I know he’s listening in, so Odo, think about it, all right? To show you we’re serious, I’ll return your precious bartender to you unscathed. Sweet deal, no? I could’ve done a lot worse to Quark for ratting me out to you.” She fixed a significant smile on Quark. “Then again…maybe not.”

No sooner had Quark rematerialized onto the _Rio Grande_ ’s transporter pad than he stalked off to the sleeping quarters and slammed the door. Alarmed, Odo pursued him, tried the handle, and rapped sharply on the door upon finding it locked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” came Quark’s anguished voice from within.

“Too bad. I do.”

Reluctantly, with infinite slowness, Quark eased the door open. “What is there to say? Their coordinates are still in the transporter. Go with them.” Quark’s miserable gaze met Odo’s dubious one. “It’s…been fun, Odo. Really fun,” he admitted, his tone deflated and piteous.

“Quark, what are you talking about?” asked a very confused Odo.

“Don’t act cute. You get a chance to rejoin your people now – as an equal, all judgments forgotten. Clean slate. All you have to do is help them find some other changelings like yourself. It’s what you’ve always wanted. I love you too much to keep you from that. Go.” Joylessly, Quark made a flicking motion with his hands. Suddenly realizing what Quark must have inferred from the Vorta’s offer, Odo lowered himself onto a knee and grasped Quark by the shoulders.

“Quark, listen to me. I’m not going anywhere. Would you care to know why not? I’m not going anywhere because I do not _wish_ to go anywhere,” he assured Quark, giving his shoulders a little shake. “To the Vault with the Great Link; I have found my peace and it is not with them! Did you really think I would give Luaran’s offer a minute’s consideration? Have I ever led you to believe that my love for you is that mutable? That I can put it on or take it off like one of my forms?” Odo’s arms trailed down to Quark’s hands at this, and he gathered them both, pressing them hard between his palms. “No, Quark. It is not something I choose and yet it is all that I choose. What do I have to do to convince you that I will not leave your side unless or until you specifically ask me to?”

Quark’s mind did panicked backflips. _Not that. Odo really couldn’t mean_ that _by what he just admitted…could he?_

“You mean…for five whole years?” he ventured, his mien the picture of apprehension.

“Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous,” replied Odo flatly. Quark let out a sigh of relief. This better befitted the life he was used to: full to brimming with inflated expectations and dashed hopes.

Odo was not finished, however: he gave Quark’s hands an encouraging little squeeze as he continued. “I mean for fifty, five hundred, five thousand…however long I happen to persist. Where does one sign one of those contracts?”

More backflips. So many that they were distracting him from the raw sincerity in Odo’s gaze. “I…uh…back on the station, I guess, hypothetically speaking…”

“Well, then, as soon as we return, my primary objective will be to find one and sign it. Unless you have any objections,” Odo added kindly.

“Um…no, of course not, Odo…seriously, Odo?” murmured Quark in a daze.

Odo placed a hand over his center mass, in the general vicinity of a heart for most humanoid species.“I swear on what you so eloquently term my ‘estranged extended goo family’, who need I remind you are considered gods by some people.”

“I’m not sure Colonel Kira will want to marry us. That’d just be awkward,” Quark muttered, still reluctantly clutching onto denial like a security blanket.

“Your brother, then? He has some authority in those matters…”

A flurry of activity greeted them upon their return. Calls to Ferenginar. Drafting of contracts. Hastily scrawled invitations to a few key individuals. Trying to find a decent tailor in Garak’s absence. Cleaning all the broken glass out of the bar. Quark was not sure it would ever let up; he could not imagine how others managed to plan this type of event with the expectation of perfection in every sense. He and Odo agreed that the signing should take place as soon as Quark’s family arrived on a transport from Ferenginar, and maintained realistic parameters given that constraint.

As a lobeling, he had wondered on occasion about what this day would be like, mostly focusing on what he would wear and how much latinum it would end up costing. Never in those idle boyhood days had he imagined that it would take place on a Bajoran space station, in his recently ransacked establishment, with his own brother presiding. To be fair to his idealistic young self, he had ended up spending almost nothing and he was indeed wearing the nicest outfit he owned – an appropriately loud turquoise and crimson affair. And truly, what did the setting matter when Odo wore a sleek, muted suit, the mantle Ishka had given him, and a wry grin worth every moon in existence?

Rom unfurled the contract upon which both parties had agreed and began reciting.

_“Blessed Exchequer, we are gathered here today to bear witness to the union of two gentlebeings in an unprecedented five-thousand-year contract, renewable upon date of expiry as per Ferengi law (howsoever it be construed in the seventy-fourth century), and subject to the following stipulations: a) the party of the first part shall be known in this contract as the party of the first part; b) the party of the second part shall be known in this contract as the party of the second part; c) if either party is deemed as not being in their right mind during the specified term of the agreement, this contract is rendered null and void – so be sure and get regular mental health check-ups, guys! – d) NO MORE HOLDING OUT ON EACH OTHER I MEAN IT; e) your impending avuncular duties must take precedence over everything else…”_

**FIN**


End file.
